CtuDcrtuooD  attrition 


THE  WRITINGS  OF 

MARK  TWAIN 
VOLUME  V 


FOLLOWING 

THE  EQUATOR 

A  Journey  Around  the  World 


BY  MARK  TWAIN 

(Samuel  L.  Clemens) 


IN    TWO    VOLUMES 

VOL.   I 


HARTFORD,   CONN. 

THE  AMERICAN  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 
K*.  <5.  Jftetobegin  Company,  jftctt  gorfc 

1901 


Copyright,  1897  and  1899,  by  OLIVIA  L.  CLEMENS 


(All  rights  reserved) 


THE  CASE,  LOCKWOOD  &  BRAINARD  COMPANY 
HARTFORD,  CONN.,  U.  S.  A. 

LOAN  STACK 


P5 


V-5" 


PIS   book  is  affectionately  inscribed  to  my 
young  friend  Harry  Rogers,  with  recogni 
tion  of  what  he  is,  and  apprehension  of  what  he 
may  become  unless  he  form  himself  a  little  more 
closely  upon  the  model  of          THE  AUTHOR 


308 


THE  PUDD'NHEAD  MAXIMS 


THESE  WISDOMS  ARE  FOR   THE    LURING   OF   YOUTH 

TOWARD   HIGH  MORAL  ALTITUDES.     THE  AUTHOR 

DID  NOT  GATHER  THEM  FROM  PRACTICE,  BUT 

FROM  OBSERVATION.    TO  BE  GOOD  IS  NOBLE; 

BUT  TO  SHOW  OTHERS  HOW  TO  BE  GOOD 

IS  NOBLER  AND  NO  TROUBLE. 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


PHO  TOGRA  VURES 

PROTECTING  THE  LADIES .        .     Thomas  Fogarty          .    Frontispiece 
THE  OLD  SETTLERS      .        .        .    Dan  Beard    ....  195 

THE  GOVERNOR'S  PROCLAMATION    .  266 


(vii) 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I. 

The  Party  —  Across  America  to  Vancouver  —  On  the  Steamer 
Warrimo  —  The  Captain  —  The  Brightest  Passenger — Rem 
edy  for  Bad  Habits  —  Remittance-men 15 

CHAPTER  II. 

Change  of  Costume  —  Fish,  Snake,  and  Boomerang  Stories  —  Tests 
of  Memory  —  A  Brahmin  Expert  —  General  Grant's  Memory 
—  A  Delicately  Improper  Tale 26 

CHAPTER  III. 

Honolulu  —  Reminiscences  of  the  Sandwich  Islands  —  King  Liho- 
liho  and  His  Royal  Equipment  —  The  Tabu  —  A  Kanaka 
Diver —  Honolulu,  Past  and  Present  —  The  Leper  Colony  .  41 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Leaving  Honolulu  —  The  Front  Yard  of  the  Ship  —  Crossing  the 
Equator— The  Waterbury  Watch  — The  Loss  of  a  Day  — 
A  Babe  without  a  Birthday 59 

CHAPTER  V. 

A  Lesson  in  Pronunciation  —  Reverence  for  Robert  Burns  —  The 
Southern  Cross  —  Islands  on  the  Map  —  Alofa  and  Fortuna  — 
Recruiting  for  the  Plantations —  Captain  Warren's  Note-Book  72 

CHAPTER  VI. 

Missionaries  Obstruct  Business  —  The  Sugar  Planter  and  the  Ka 
naka—The  Planter's  View  — The  Missionary's  View  — The 

Death  Rate  in  Queensland 80 

(ix) 


x  Contents 

CHAPTER  VII. 

The  Fiji  Islands  —  Suva  —  The  Ship  from  Duluth  —  Midwinter  in 
Fiji  —Why  Fiji  was  Ceded  to  England  — Old  Time  Fijians  — 
Immortality  with  Limitations 89 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

A  Wilderness  of  Islands  —  A  Naturalist  from  New  Zealand  —  The 
Fauna  of  Australasia  —  Animals,  Insects,  and  Birds — The 
Ornithorhyncus  —  Poetry  and  Plagiarism 98 

CHAPTER  IX. 

Australia  —  Porpoises  at  Night  —  The  Harbor  and  City  of  Sydney 
—  Climate  —  Information  for  Travelers  —  Size  of  Australia  — 
Dust-Storm  and  Hot  Wind 107 

CHAPTER  X. 

The  Discovery  of  Australia  —  Transportation  of  Convicts  —  Disci 
pline  —  English  Laws,  Ancient  and  Modern  —  Arrival  of  Set 
tlers —  Development  of  the  Country  —  Immense  Resources  .  119 

CHAPTER  XL 

Hospitality  of  English-speakers — Sydney  an  English  City  with  Ameri 
can  Trimmings  —  "  Squatters  "  —  Wool  and  Mutton  —  Aus 
tralians  and  Americans  —  Table  Talk  —  Australian  Audiences  125 

CHAPTER  XII. 

Mr.  X.,  a  Missionary  —  Why  Christianity  Makes  Slow  Progress  in 
India  —  A  Large  Dream  —  Hindoo  Miracles  and  Legends  — 
Samson  and  Hanuman  —  Where  are  the  Gates?  .  .  .  .132 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

Public  Works  in  Australasia  —  Botanical  Garden  of  Sydney  —  Four 
Special  Socialties  —  Shark  Fishing  —  Cecil  Rhodes'  Shark  and 
his  First  Fortune  — Free  Board  for  Sharks 136 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

To  Melbourne  by  Rail  —  The  Colony  of  Victoria  — A  Peculiarity  at 
Albury  —  Customs- fences  —  "My  Word  "  —  Rabbit  Piles  — 
Government  Restaurants —  "  Sheep-dip  "  —  Railroad  Coffee  .  149 


Contents  xi 

CHAPTER  XV. 

Wagga-Wagga  —  Tichborne  Claimant — A  Stock  Mystery  —  Plan 
of  the  Romance  —  Realization  —  The  Henry  Bascom  Mystery 

—  The  Author's  Death  and  Funeral 155 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

Melbourne  and  its  Attractions  —  The  Melbourne  Cup  Races  —  Cup 
Day  —  The  Australian  Larrikin  —  Is  He  Dead?  —  Australian 
Hospitality  —  Museums  —  Palaces  —  Origin  of  Melbourne  .  162 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

The  British  Empire  — The  Trade  of  Australia  — To  Adelaide  — 
Broken  Hill  Silver  Mine  —  The  Scrub  and  its  Possibilities  — 
The  Aboriginal  Tracker  —  A  Test  Case 171 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

Gum  Trees  —  Gorse  and  Broom  —  An  Adventurer  —  Unique  Busi 
ness  by  One  Man  —  Everything  Comes  to  Him  who  Waits  — 
Healthy  Religious  Atmosphere 179 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

Public  Gardens  of  Adelaide  —  Laughing  Jackass  —  The  Dingo  — 
Mania  for  Holidays  —  Temperature  —  Old  Settlers  at  a  Ban 
quet —  Intelligence  of  the  Aboriginal  —  The  Boomerang  .  .  189 

CHAPTER  XX. 

A  Caller  —  A  Talk  about  Old  Times  —  The  Fox  Hunt  —  An  Accu 
rate  Judgment  of  an  Idiot  —  How  We  Passed  the  Customs 
Officers  in  Italy 198 

CHAPTER  XXI. 

The  "  Weet-Weet  "  —  Victoria  —  Killing  the  Aboriginals  —  Pio 
neer  Days  in  Queensland  —  The  Bush  —  Pudding  with  Arsenic 

—  Revenge 207 

CHAPTER  XXII. 

Aboriginals  Continued  —  Manly  Qualities  —  Athletic  Sports  — 
Where  the  Kangaroo  Learned  its  Art  —  Well  Digging  —  En 
durance  —  Surgery  —  Artistic  Abilities  —  Australian  Slang  .217 


xii  Contents 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 
Horsham  —  Pepper    Tree  —  Agricultural    College  —  Fruit    Trees 

—  Soils  —  Sheep  Shearing  —  To  Stawell  —  Gold  Mining  Coun 
try  —  Grapes  and  Wine  —  The  Three  Sisters  —  Gum  Trees     .  227 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 

Road  to  Ballarat  —  The  City  —  Gold  Strike,  1851  —  Rush  for  Aus 
tralia  —  Taxation  —  Revolt  —  The  Eureka  Stockade  —  "  Pen 
cil  Mark  "  —  Statuary  at  Ballarat  —  Ballarat  English  .  .  .236 

CHAPTER  XXV. 

Bound  for  Bendigo  —  The  Priest  at  Castlemaine  —  A  Valuable  Nug 
get—Mr.  Blank  and  His  Influence  —  Corrigan  Castle  and  the 
Mark  Twain  Club 245 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 

Where  New  Zealand  Is—  But  Few  Know— Things  People  Think 

They  Know — The  Yale  Professor  and  His  Visitor  from  N.  Z.  258 

CHAPTER  XXVII. 

The  South  Pole  Swell  —  Tasmania  —  Extermination  of  the  Natives 

—  The  Picture  Proclamation  —  The  Conciliator  —  The  Formi 
dable  Sixteen 264 

CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

When  the  Moment  Comes  the  Man  Appears  —  Why  Ed.  Jackson 
called  on  Commodore  Vanderbilt  —  Sent  on  Important  Busi 
ness — A  Visit  to  the  Boys  on  the  Boat 277 

CHAPTER  XXIX. 

Tasmania,  Early  Days — Town  of  Hobart — Neatest  City  on 
Earth  —  Museum  —  Parrot  with  an  Acquired  Taste — Glass 
Arrow  Heads  —  Refuge  for  the  Indigent 288 

CHAPTER  XXX. 

At  Bluff,  N.  Z. —  Where  the  Rabbit  Plague  Began  —  Dunedin  — 
Visit  to  Dr.  Hockin  —  His  Museum  —  Unperfected  Tape 
Worm  —  Public  Museum  and  Picture  Gallery 297 

CHAPTER  XXXI. 
The  Express  Train—  "  A  Hell  of  a  Hotel  at  Maryborough  "  — 

Clocks  and  Bells  —  Railroad  Service 303 


Contents  xiii 

CHAPTER  XXXII. 
Town  of  Christ  Church  —  Museum —  Jade-stone  —  The  Great  Moa 

—  First  Maori  in  New  Zealand —  "  Person  "  Includes  Woman 

—  Taming  an  Ornithorhyncus  —  Voyage  in  the  Flora   .     .     .311 

CHAPTER  XXXIII. 

The  Town  of  Nelson  — "The  Mongatapu  Murders "  — Mount 
Eden— Rotorua  and  the  Hot  Lakes  and  Geysers— Thermal 
Springs  District  —  Kauri  Gum  —  Tangariwa  Mountains  .  .  320 

CHAPTER  XXXIV. 

Bay  of  Gisborne — Taking  Passengers  by  the  Yard  Arm  —  Green 
Ballarat  Fly  — False  Teeth  — Napier  to  Hastings  by  the  Bal- 
larat  Fly  Train  —  Kauri  Trees  —  Mental  Telegraphy  .  .  .327 

CHAPTER  XXXV. 

Fifty  Miles  in  Four  Hours  —  Comfortable  Cars  — Town  of  Wauga- 
nui  —  Plenty  of  Maoris — The  Missionary  Ways  all  Wrong  — 
The  Tabu  —  A  Mysterious  Sign  —  Wellington 332 

CHAPTER  XXXVI. 

Poems  of  Mrs.  Moore  —  Sad  Fate  of  William  Upson  —  Imitating 
the  Prince  of  Wales  —  A  Would-be  Dude  —  Arrival  at  Sydney 
— Curious  Town  Names  with  Poem 339 


FOLLOWING  THE   EQUATOR 


CHAPTER   I. 

A  mm  may  have  no  bad  habits  and  have  worse. 

—  Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

THE  starting  point  of   this  lecturing-trip  around 
the  world  was  Paris,  where  we  had  been  living 
a  year  or  two. 

We  sailed  for  America,  and  there  made  certain 
preparations.  This  took  but  little  time.  Two  mem 
bers  of  my  family  elected  to  go  with  me.  Also  a 
carbuncle.  The  dictionary  says  a  carbuncle  is  a 
kind  of  jewel.  Humor  is  out  of  place  in  a  dic 
tionary. 

We  started  westward  from  New  York  in  mid 
summer,  with  Major  Pond  to  manage  the  platform- 
business  as  far  as  the  Pacific.  It  was  warm  work, 
all  the  way,  and  the  last  fortnight  of  it  was  suffo 
catingly  smoky,  for  in  Oregon  and  British  Columbia 
the  forest  fires  were  raging.  We  had  an  added 
week  of  smoke  at  the  seaboard,  where  we  were 
obliged  to  wait  awhile  for  our  ship.  She  had  been 
getting  herself  ashore  in  the  smoke,  and  she  had  to 
be  docked  and  repaired.  We  sailed  at  last;  and  so 
ended  a  snail-paced  march  across  the  continent, 
which  had  lasted  forty  days. 

(15) 


16  Following  the  Equator 

We  moved  westward  about  mid-afternoon  over  a 
rippled  and  sparkling  summer  sea ;  an  enticing  sea, 
a  clean  and  cool  sea,  and  apparently  a  welcome  sea 
to  all  on  board;  it  certainly  was  to  me,  after  the 
distressful  dustings  and  smokings  and  swelterings  of 
the  past  weeks.  The  voyage  would  furnish  a  three- 
weeks  holiday,  with  hardly  a  break  in  it.  We  had 
the  whole  Pacific  Ocean  in  front  of  us,  with  nothing 
to  do  but  do  nothing  and  be  comfortable.  The  city 
of  Victoria  was  twinkling  dim  in  the  deep  heart  of 
her  smoke-cloud,  and  getting  ready  to  vanish ;  and 
now  we  closed  the  field-glasses  and  sat  down  on  our 
steamer  chairs  contented  and  at  peace.  But  they 
went  to  wreck  and  ruin  under  us  and  brought  us  to 
shame  before  all  the 'passengers.  They  had  been 
furnished  by  the  largest  furniture-dealing  house  in 
Victoria,  and  were  worth  a  couple  of  farthings  a 
dozen,  though  they  had  cost  us  the  price  of  honest 
chairs.  In  the  Pacific  and  Indian  Oceans  one  must 
still  bring  his  own  deck-chair  on  board  or  go  with 
out,  just  as  in  the  old  forgotten  Atlantic  times  — 
those  Dark  Ages  of  sea  travel. 

Ours  was  a  reasonably  comfortable  ship,  with  the 
customary  sea-going  fare  —  plenty  of  good  food 
furnished  by  the  Deity  and  cooked  by  the  devil. 
The  discipline  observable  on  board  was  perhaps  as 
good  as  it  is  anywhere  in  the  Pacific  and  Indian 
Oceans.  The  ship  was  not  very  well  arranged  for 
tropical  service ;  but  that  is  nothing,  for  this  is  the 
rule  for  ships  which  ply  in  the  tropics.  She  had  an 


Following  the  Equator  17 

over-supply  of  cockroaches,  but  this  is  also  the  rule 
with  ships  doing  business  in  the  summer  seas  —  at 
least  such  as  have  been  long  in  service. 

Our  young  captain  was  a  very  handsome  man, 
tall  and  perfectly  formed,  the  very  figure  to  show 
up  a  smart  uniform's  finest  effects.  He  was  a  man 
of  the  best  intentions,  and  was  polite  and  courteous 
even  to  courtliness.  There  was  a  soft  grace  and 
finish  about  his  manners  which  made  whatever  place 
he  happened  to  be  in  seem  for  the  moment  a 
drawing-room.  He  avoided  the  smoking-room.  He 
had  no  vices.  He  did  not  smoke  or  chew  tobacco 
or  take  snuff;  he  did  not  swear,  or  use  slang,  or 
rude,  or  coarse,  or  indelicate  language,  or  make 
puns,  or  tell  anecdotes,  or  laugh  intemperately,  or 
raise  his  voice  above  the  moderate  pitch  enjoined  by 
the  canons  of  good  form.  When  he  gave  an  order, 
his  manner  modified  it  into  a  request.  After  dinner 
he  and  his  officers  joined  the  ladies  and  gentlemen 
in  the  ladies'  saloon,  and  shared  in  the  singing  and 
piano  playing,  and  helped  turn  the  music.  He  had 
a  sweet  and  sympathetic  tenor  voice,  and  used  it 
with  taste  and  effect.  After  the  music  he  played 
whist  there,  always  with  the  same  partner  and  op 
ponents,  until  the  ladies'  bedtime.  The  electric 
lights  burned  there  as  late  as  the  ladies  and  their 
friends  might  desire,  but  they  were  not  allowed  to 
burn  in  the  smoking-room  after  eleven.  There  were 
many  laws  on  the  ship's  statute  book,  of  course; 
but,  so  far  as  I  could  see,  this  and  one  other  were 
2* 


18  Following  the  Equator 

the  only  ones  that  were  rigidly  enforced.  The  cap 
tain  explained  that  he  enforced  this  one  because  his 
own  cabin  adjoined  the  smoking-room,  and  the 
smell  of  tobacco  smoke  made  him  sick.  I  did  not 
see  how  our  smoke  could  reach  him,  for  the 
smoking-room  and  his  cabin  were  on  the  upper 
deck,  targets  for  all  the  winds  that  blew;  and  be 
sides  there  was  no  crack  of  communication  between 
them,  no  opening  of  any  sort  in  the  solid  inter 
vening  bulkhead.  Still,  to  a  delicate  stomach  even 
imaginary  smoke  can  convey  damage. 

The  captain,  with  his  gentle  nature,  his  polish, 
his  sweetness,  his  moral  and  verbal  purity,  seemed 
pathetically  out  of  place  in  his  rude  and  autocratic 
vocation.  It  seemed  another  instance  of  the  irony 
of  fate. 

He  was  going  home  under  a  cloud.  The  passen 
gers  knew  about  his  trouble,  and  were  sorry  for 
him.  Approaching  Vancouver  through  a  narrow 
and  difficult  passage  densely  befogged  with  smoke 
from  the  forest  fires,  he  had  had  the  ill-luck  to  lose 
his  bearings  and  get  his  ship  on  the  rocks.  A 
matter  like  this  would  rank  merely  as  an  error  with 
you  and  me ;  it  ranks  as  a  crime  with  the  directors 
of  steamship  companies.  The  captain  had  been 
tried  by  the  Admiralty  Court  at  Vancouver,  and  its 
verdict  had  acquitted  him  of  blame.  But  that  was 
insufficient  comfort.  A  sterner  court  would  examine 
the  case  in  Sydney  —  the  Court  of  Directors,  the 
lords  of  a  company  in  whose  ships  the  captain  had 


Following  the  Equator  19 

served  as  mate  a  number  of  years.  This  was  his 
first  voyage  as  captain. 

The  officers  of  our  ship  were  hearty  and  com 
panionable  young  men,  and  they  entered  into  the 
general  amusements  and  helped  the  passengers  pass 
the  time.  Voyages  in  the  Pacific  and  Indian  Oceans 
are  but  pleasure  excursions  for  all  hands.  Our 
purser  was  a  young  Scotchman  who  was  equipped 
with  a  grit  that  was  remarkable.  He  was  an  invalid, 
and  looked  it,  as  far  as  his  body  was  concerned, 
but  illness  could  not  subdue  his  spirit.  He  was  full 
of  life,  and  had  a  gay  and  capable  tongue.  To  all 
appearances  he  was  a  sick  man  without  being  aware 
of  it,  for  he  did  not  talk  about  his  ailments,  and  his 
bearing  and  conduct  were  those  of  a  person  in  robust 
health;  yet  he  was  the  prey,  at  intervals,  of  ghastly 
sieges  of  pain  in  his  heart.  These  lasted  many 
hours,  and  while  the  attack  continued  he  could 
neither  sit  nor  lie.  In  one  instance  he  stood  on  his 
feet  twenty-four  hours  fighting  for  his  life  with  these 
sharp  agonies,  and  yet  was  as  full  of  life  and  cheer 
and  activity  the  next  day  as  if  nothing  had  hap 
pened. 

The  brightest  passenger  in  the  ship,  and  the  most 
interesting  and  felicitous  talker,  was  a  young  Cana 
dian  who  was  not  able  to  let  the  whisky  bottle 
alone.  He  was  of  a  rich  and  powerful  family,  and 
could  have  had  a  distinguished  career  and  abundance 
of  effective  help  toward  it  if  he  could  have  con 
quered  his  appetite  for  drink;  but  he  could  not  do 


20  Following  the  Equator 

it,  so  his  great  equipment  of  talent  was  of  no  use  to 
him.  He  had  often  taken  the  pledge  to  drink  no 
more,  and  was  a  good  sample  of  what  that  sort  of 
unwisdom  can  do  for  a  man  —  for  a  man  with  any 
thing  short  of  an  iron  will.  The  system  is  wrong  in 
two  ways:  it  does  not  strike  at  the  root  of  the 
trouble,  for  one  thing,  and  to  make  a  pledge  of  any 
kind  is  to  declare  war  against  nature ;  for  a  pledge 
is  a  chain  that  is  always  clanking  and  reminding  the 
wearer  of  it  that  he  is  not  a  free  man. 

I  have  said  that  the  system  does  not  strike  at  the 
root  of  the  trouble,  and  I  venture  to  repeat  that. 
The  root  is  not  the  drinking,  but  the  desire  to 
drink.  These  are  very  different  things.  The  one 
merely  requires  will  —  and  a  great  deal  of  it,  both 
as  to  bulk  and  staying  capacity  —  the  other  merely 
requires  watchfulness  —  and  for  no  long  time.  The 
desire  of  course  precedes  the  act,  and  should  have 
one's  first  attention;  it  can  do  but  little  good  to 
refuse  the  act  over  and  over  again,  always  leaving 
the  desire  unmolested,  unconquered ;  the  desire  will 
continue  to  assert  itself,  and  will  be  almost  sure  to 
win  in  the  long  run.  When  the  desire  intrudes,  it 
should  be  at  once  banished  out  of  the  mind.  One 
should  be  on  the  watch  for  it  all  the  time  —  other 
wise  it  will  get  in.  It  must  be  taken  in  time  and 
not  allowed  to  get  a  lodgment.  A  desire  constantly 
repulsed  for  a  fortnight  should  die,  then.  That 
should  cure  the  drinking  habit.  The  system  of  re 
fusing  the  mere  act  of  drinking,  and  leaving  the 


Following  the  Equator  21 

desire  in  full  force,  is  unintelligent  war  tactics,  it 
seems  to  me. 

I  used  to  take  pledges  —  and  soon  violate  them. 
My  will  was  not  strong,  and  I  could  not  help  it. 
And  then,  to  be  tied  in  any  way  naturally  irks  an 
otherwise  free  person  and  makes  him  chafe  in  his 
bonds  and  want  to  get  his  liberty.  But  when  I 
finally  ceased  from  taking  definite  pledges,  and 
merely  resolved  that  I  would  kill  an  injurious  desire, 
but  leave  myself  free  to  resume  the  desire  and  the 
habit  whenever  I  should  choose  to  do  so,  I  had  no 
more  trouble.  In  five  days  I  drove  out  the  desire 
to  smoke  and  was  not  obliged  to  keep  watch  after 
that ;  and  I  never  experienced  any  strong  desire  to 
smoke  again.  At  the  end  of  a  year  and  a  quarter 
of  idleness  I  began  to  write  a  book,  and  presently 
found  that  the  pen  was  strangely  reluctant  to  go.  I 
tried  a  smoke  to  see  if  that  would  help  me  out  of 
the  difficulty.  It  did.  I  smoked  eight  or  ten  cigars 
and  as  many  pipes  a  day  for  five  months ;  finished 
the  book,  and  did  not  smoke  again  until  a  year  had 
gone  by  and  another  book  had  to  be  begun. 

I  can  quit  any  of  my  nineteen  injurious  habits  at 
any  time,  and  without  discomfort  or  inconvenience. 
I  think  that  the  Dr.  Tanners  and  those  others  who 
go  forty  days  without  eating  do  it  by  resolutely 
keeping  out  the  desire  to  eat,  in  the  beginning;  and 
that  after  a  few  hours  the  desire  is  discouraged  and 
comes  no  more. 

Once  I  tried  my  scheme  in  a  large  medical  way, 


22  Following  the  Equator 

I  had  been  confined  to  my  bed  several  days  with 
lumbago.  My  case  refused  to  improve.  Finally 
the  doctor  said : 

"  My  remedies  have  no  fair  chance.  Consider 
what  they  have  to  fight,  besides  the  lumbago.  You 
smoke  extravagantly,  don't  you?" 

"Yes/1 

11  You  take  coffee  immoderately?" 

"Yes." 

"  And  some  tea?" 

"Yes." 

"You  eat  all  kinds  of  things  that  are  dissatisfied 
with  each  other's  company?" 

"Yes." 

"  You  drink  two  hot  Scotches  every  night?" 

"Yes." 

"  Very  well,  there  you  see  what  I  have  to  contend 
against.  We  can't  make  progress  the  way  the 
matter  stands.  You  must  make  a  reduction  in  these 
things;  you  must  cut  down  your  consumption  of 
them  considerably  for  some  days." 

"  I  can't,  doctor." 

"Why  can't  you?" 

"  I  lack  the  will-power.  I  can  cut  them  off  en 
tirely,  but  I  can't  merely  moderate  them." 

He  said  that  that  would  answer,  and  said  he  would 
come  around  in  twenty-four  hours  and  begin  work 
again.  He  was  taken  ill  himself  and  could  not 
come;  but  I  did  not  need  him.  I  cut  off  all  those 
things  for  two  days  and  nights ;  in  fact,  I  cut  off  all 


Following  the  Equator  23 

kinds  of  food,  too,  and  all  drinks  except  water,  and 
at  the  end  of  the  forty-eight  hours  the  lumbago  was 
discouraged  and  left  me.  I  was  a  well  man;  so  I 
gave  thanks  and  took  to  those  delicacies  again. 

It  seemed  a  valuable  medical  course,  and  I  recom 
mended  it  to  a  lady.  She  had  run  down  and  down 
and  down,  and  had  at  last  reached  a  point  where 
medicines  no  longer  had  any  helpful  effect  upon 
her.  I  said  I  knew  I  could  put  her  upon  her  feet  in 
a  week.  It  brightened  her  up,  it  filled  her  with 
hope,  and  she  said  she  would  do  everything  I  told 
her  to  do.  So  I  said  she  must  stop  swearing  and 
drinking  and  smoking  and  eating  for  four  days,  and 
then  she  would  be  all  right  again.  And  it  would 
have  happened  just  so,  I  know  it;  but  she  said  she 
could  not  stop  swearing  and  smoking  and  drinking, 
because  she  had  never  done  those  things.  So  there 
it  was.  She  had  neglected  her  habits,  and  hadn't 
any.  Now  that  they  would  have  come  good,  there 
were  none  in  stock.  She  had  nothing  to  fall  back 
on.  She  was  a  sinking  vessel,  with  no  freight  in 
her  to  throw  overboard  and  lighten  ship  withal. 
Why,  even  one  or  two  little  bad  habits  could  have 
saved  her,  but  she  was  just  a  moral  pauper.  When 
she  could  have  acquired  them  she  was  dissuaded  by 
her  parents,  who  were  ignorant  people  though 
reared  in  the  best  society,  and  it  was  too  late  to 
begin  now.  It  seemed  such  a  pity;  but  there  was 
no  help  for  it.  These  things  ought  to  be  attended 
to  while  a  person  is  young;  otherwise,  when  age 


24  Following  the  Equator 

and  disease  come,  there  is  nothing  effectual  to  fight 
them  with. 

When  I  was  a  youth  I  used  to  take  all  kinds  of 
pledges,  and  do  my  best  to  keep  them,  but  I  never 
could,  because  I  didn't  strike  at  the  root  of  the 
habit  —  the  desire ;  I  generally  broke  down  within 
the  month.  Once  I  tried  limiting  a  habit.  That 
worked  tolerably  well  for  a  while.  I  pledged  myself 
to  smoke  but  one  cigar  a  day.  I  kept  the  cigar 
waiting  until  bedtime,  then  I  had  a  luxurious  time 
with  it.  But  desire  persecuted  me  every  day  and 
all  day  long;  so,  within  the  week  I  found  myself 
hunting  for  larger  cigars  than  I  had  been  used  to 
smoke;  then  larger  ones  still,  and  still  larger  ones. 
Within  the  fortnight  I  was  getting  cigars  made  for 
me  —  on  a  yet  larger  pattern.  They  still  grew  and 
grew  in  size.  Within  the  month  my  cigar  had 
grown  to  such  proportions  that  I  could  have  used  it 
as  a  crutch.  It  now  seemed  to  me  that  a  one-cigar 
limit  was  no  real  protection  to  a  person,  so  I 
knocked  my  pledge  on  the  head  and  resumed  my 
liberty. 

To  go  back  to  that  young  Canadian.  He  was  a 
" remittance  man,"  the  first  one  I  had  ever  seen  or 
heard  of.  Passengers  explained  the  term  to  me. 
They  said  that  dissipated  ne'er-do-weels  belonging 
to  important  families  in  England  and  Canada  were 
not  cast  off  by  their  people  while  there  was  any 
hope  of  reforming  them,  but  when  that  last  hope 
perished  at  last,  the  ne'er-do-weel  was  sent  abroad 


Following  the  Equator  25 

to  get  him  out  of  the  way.  He  was  shipped  off  with 
just  enough  money  in  his  pocket — no,  in  the 
purser's  pocket  —  for  the  needs  of  the  voyage  — 
and  when  he  reached  his  destined  port  he  would 
find  a  remittance  awaiting  him  there.  Not  a  large 
one,  but  just  enough  to  keep  him  a  month.  A 
similar  remittance  would  come  monthly  thereafter.  It 
was  the  remittance-man's  custom  to  pay  his  month's 
board  and  lodging  straightway  —  a  duty  which  his 
landlord  did  not  allow  him  to  forget  —  then  spree 
away  the  rest  of  his  money  in  a  single  night,  then 
brood  and  mope  and  grieve  in  idleness  till  the  next 
remittance  came.  It  is  a  pathetic  life. 

We  had  other  remittance-men  on  board,  it  was 
said.  At  least  they  said  they  were  R.  M.'s.  There 
were  two.  But  they  did  not  resemble  the  Canadian; 
they  lacked  his  tidiness,  and  his  brains,  and  his 
gentlemanly  ways,  and  his  resolute  spirit,  and  his 
humanities  and  generosities.  One  of  them  was  a 
lad  of  nineteen  or  twenty,  and  he  was  a  good  deal 
of  a  ruin,  as  to  clothes,  and  morals,  and  general 
aspect.  He  said  he  was  a  scion  of  a  ducal  house 
in  England,  and  had  been  shipped  to  Canada  for 
the  house's  relief,  that  he  had  fallen  into  trouble 
there,  and  was  now  being  shipped  to  Australia.  He 
said  he  had  no  title.  Beyond  this  remark  he  was 
economical  of  the  truth.  The  first  thing  he  did  in 
Australia  was  to  get  into  the  lockup,  and  the  next 
thing  he  did  was  to  proclaim  himself  an  earl  in  the 
police  court  in  the  morning  and  fail  to  prove  it. 


CHAPTER   II. 

When  in  doubt,  tell  the  truth.—  Putid'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

7VBOUT  four  days  out  from  Victoria  we  plunged 
*»  into  hot  weather,  and  all  the  male  passengers 
put  on  white  linen  clothes.  One  or  two  days  later 
we  crossed  the  25th  parallel  of  north  latitude,  and 
then,  by  order,  the  officers  of  the  ship  laid  away 
their  blue  uniforms  and  came  out  in  white  linen 
ones.  All  the  ladies  were  in  white  by  this  time. 
This  prevalence  of  snowy  costumes  gave  the  prom 
enade  deck  an  invitingly  cool  and  cheerful  and 
picnicky  aspect. 

From  my  diary : 

There  are  several  sorts  of  ills  in  the  world  from 
which  a  person  can  never  escape  altogether,  let  him 
journey  as  far  as  he  will.  One  escapes  from  one 
breed  of  an  ill  only  to  encounter  another  breed  of 
it.  We  have  come  far  from  the  snake  liar  and  the 
fish  liar,  and  there  was  rest  and  peace  in  the 
thought;  but  now  we  have  reached  the  realm  of 
the  boomerang  liar,  and  sorrow  is  with  us  once 
more.  The  first  officer  has  seen  a  man  try  to  escape 
from  his  enemy  by  getting  behind  a  tree ;  but  the 

(26) 


Following  the  Equator  27 

enemy  sent  his  boomerang  sailing  into  the  sky  far 
above  and  beyond  the  tree;  then  it  turned,  de 
scended,  and  killed  the  man.  The  Australian  pas 
senger  has  seen  this  thing  done  to  two  men,  behind 
two  trees  —  and  by  the  one  arrow.  This  being 
received  with  a  large  silence  that  suggested  doubt, 
he  buttressed  it  with  the  statement  that  his  brother 
once  saw  the  boomerang  kill  a  bird  away  off  a  hun 
dred  yards  and  bring  it  to  the  thrower.  But  these  are 
ills  which  must  be  borne.  There  is  no  other  way. 

The  talk  passed  from  the  boomerang  to  dreams  — 
usually  a  fruitful  subject,  afloat  or  ashore  —  but  this 
time  the  output  was  poor.  Then  it  passed  to  in 
stances  of  extraordinary  memory  —  with  better  re 
sults.  Blind  Tom,  the  negro  pianist,  was  spoken 
of,  and  it  was  said  that  he  could  accurately  play  any 
piece  of  music,  howsoever  long  and  difficult,  after 
hearing  it  once ;  and  that  six  months  later  he  could 
accurately  play  it  again,  without  having  touched  it 
in  the  interval.  One  of  the  most  striking  of  the 
stories  told  was  furnished  by  a  gentleman  who  had 
served  on  the  staff  of  the  Viceroy  of  India.  He 
read  the  details  from  his  note-book,  and  explained 
that  he  had  written  them  down,  right  after  the  con 
summation  of  the  incident  which  they  described, 
because  he  thought  that  if  he  did  not  put  them  down 
in  black  and  white  he  might  presently  come  to  think 
he  had  dreamed  them  or  invented  them. 

The  Viceroy  was  making  a  progress,  and  among 
the  shows  offered  by  the  Maharajah  of  Mysore  for 


28  Following  the  Equator 

his  entertainment  was  a  memory-exhibition.  The 
Viceroy  and  thirty  gentlemen  of  his  suite  sat  in  a 
row,  and  the  memory-expert,  a  high-caste  Brahmin, 
was  brought  in  and  seated  on  the  floor  in  front  of 
them.  He  said  he  knew  but  two  languages,  the 
English  and  his  own,  but  would  not  exclude  any 
foreign  tongue  from  the  tests  to  be  applied  to  his 
memory.  Then  he  laid  before  the  assemblage  his 
program  —  a  sufficiently  extraordinary  one.  He 
proposed  that  one  gentleman  should  give  him  one 
word  of  a  foreign  sentence,  and  tell  him  its  place  in 
the  sentence.  He  was  furnished  with  the  French 
word  estj  and  was  told  it  was  second  in  a  sentence 
of  three  words.  The  next  gentleman  gave  him  the 
German  word  verloren  and  said  it  was  the  third  in  a 
sentence  of  four  words.  He  asked  the  next  gentle 
man  for  one  detail  in  a  sum  in  addition ;  another  for 
one  detail  in  a  sum  of  subtraction ;  others  for  single 
details  in  mathematical  problems  of  various  kinds ; 
he  got  them.  Intermediates  gave  him  single  words 
from  sentences  in  Greek,  Latin,  Spanish,  Portuguese, 
Italian,  and  other  languages,  and  told  him  their 
places  in  the  sentences.  When  at  last  everybody 
had  furnished  him  a  single  rag  from  a  foreign 
sentence  or  a  figure  from  a  problem,  he  went  over 
the  ground  again,  and  got  a  second  word  and  a 
second  figure  and  was  told  their  places  in  the  sen 
tences  and  the  sums;  and  so  on  and  so  on.  He 
went  over  the  ground  again  and  again  until  he  had 
collected  all  the  parts  of  the  sums  and  all  the  parts 


Following  the  Equator  29 

of  the  sentences  —  and  all  in  disorder,  of  course, 
not  in  their  proper  rotation.  This  had  occupied 
two  hours. 

The  Brahmin  now  sat  silent  and  thinking,  a  while, 
then  began  and  repeated  all  the  sentences,  placing 
the  words  in  their  proper  order,  and  untangled  the 
disordered  arithmetical  problems  and  gave  accurate 
answers  to  them  all. 

In  the  beginning  he  had  asked  the  company  to 
throw  almonds  at  him  during  the  two  hours,  he  to 
remember  how  many  each  gentleman  had  thrown ; 
but  none  were  thrown,  for  the  Viceroy  said  that  the 
test  would  be  a  sufficiently  severe  strain  without 
adding  that  burden  to  it. 

General  Grant  had  a  fine  memory  for  all  kinds  of 
things,  including  even  names  and  faces,  and  I  could 
have  furnished  an  instance  of  it  if  I  had  thought  of 
it.  The  first  time  I  ever  saw  him  was  early  in  his 
first  term  as  President.  I  had  just  arrived  in 
Washington  from  the  Pacific  coast,  a  stranger  and 
wholly  unknown  to  the  public,  and  was  passing  the 
White  House  one  morning  when  I  met  a  friend,  a 
Senator  from  Nevada.  He  asked  me  if  I  would 
like  to  see  the  President.  I  said  I  should  be  very 
glad;  so  we  entered.  I  supposed  that  the  President 
would  be  in  the  midst  of  a  crowd,  and  that  I  could 
look  at  him  in  peace  and  security  from  a  distance, 
as  another  stray  cat  might  look  at  another  king. 
But  it  was  in  the  morning,  and  the  Senator  was 
using  a  privilege  of  his  office  which  I  had  not  heard 


30  Following  the  Equator 

of  —  the  privilege  of  intruding  upon  the  Chief 
Magistrate's  working  hours.  Before  I  knew  it,  the 
Senator  and  I  were  in  the  presence,  and  there  was 
none  there  but  we  three.  General  Grant  got  slowly 
up  from  his  table,  put  his  pen  down,  and  stood 
before  me  with  the  iron  expression  of  a  man  who 
had  not  smiled  for  seven  years,  and  was  not  intend 
ing  to  smile  for  another  seven.  He  looked  me 
steadily  in  the  eyes  —  mine  lost  confidence  and  fell. 
I  had  never  confronted  a  great  man  before,  and  was 
in  a  miserable  state  of  funk  and  inefficiency.  The 
Senator  said : 

"Mr.  President,  may  I  have  the  privilege  of 
introducing  Mr.  Clemens?" 

The  President  gave  my  hand  an  unsympathetic 
wag  and  dropped  it.  He  did  not  say  a  word,  but 
just  stood.  In  my  trouble  I  could  not  think  of  any 
thing  to  say,  I  merely  wanted  to  resign.  There  was 
an  awkward  pause,  a  dreary  pause,  a  horrible  pause. 
Then  I  thought  of  something,  and  looked  up  into 
that  unyielding  face,  and  said  timidly: 

"Mr.  President,  I  —  I  am  embarrassed.  Are 
you?" 

His  face  broke  —  just  a  little  —  a  wee  glimmer, 
the  momentary  flicker  of  a  summer-lightning  smile, 
seven  years  ahead  of  time  —  and  I  was  out  and  gone 
as  soon  as  it  was. 

Ten  years  passed  away  before  I  saw  him  the 
second  time.  Meantime  I  was  become  better  known  ; 
and  was  one  of  the  people  appointed  to  respond  to 


Following  the  Equator  31 

toasts  at  the  banquet  given  to  General  Grant  in  Chi 
cago  by  the  Army  of  the  Tennessee  when  he  came 
back  from  his  tour  around  the  world.  I  arrived 
late  at  night  and  got  up  late  in  the  morning.  All 
the  corridors  of  the  hotel  were  crowded  with  people 
waiting  to  get  a  glimpse  of  General  Grant  when  he 
should  pass  to  the  place  whence  he  was  to  review 
the  great  procession.  I  worked  my  way  by  the 
suite  of  packed  drawing-rooms,  and  at  the  corner  of 
the  house  I  found  a  window  open  where  there  was  a 
roomy  platform  decorated  with  flags,  and  carpeted. 
I  stepped  out  on  it,  and  saw  below  me  millions  of 
people  blocking  all  the  streets,  and  other  millions 
caked  together  in  all  the  windows  and  on  all  the 
house-tops  around.  These  masses  took  me  for 
General  Grant,  and  broke  into  volcanic  explosions 
and  cheers ;  but  it  was  a  good  place  to  see  the  pro 
cession,  and  I  stayed.  Presently  I  heard  the  distant 
blare  of  military  music,  and  far  up  the  street  I  saw 
the  procession  come  in  sight,  cleaving  its  way 
through  the  huzzaing  multitudes,  with  Sheridan,  the 
most  martial  figure  of  the  War,  riding  at  its  head  in 
the  dress  uniform  of  a  Lieutenant-General. 

And  now  General  Grant,  arm-in-arm  with  Major 
Carter  Harrison,  stepped  out  on  the  platform,  fol 
lowed  two  and  two  by  the  badged  and  uniformed 
reception  committee.  General  Grant  was  looking 
exactly  as  he  had  looked  upon  that  trying  occasion 
of  ten  years  before  —  all  iron  and  bronze  self- 
possession.  Mr.  Harrison  came  over  and  led  me  to 


32  Following  the  Equator 

the  General  and  formally  introduced  me.  Before  I 
could  put  together  the  proper  remark,  General  Grant 
said : 

"Mr.  Clemens,  I  am  not  embarrassed.  Are 
you?" — and  that  little  seven-year  smile  twinkled 
across  his  face  again. 

Seventeen  years  have  gone  by  since  then,  and 
to-day,  in  New  York,  the  streets  are  a  crush  of  people 
who  are  there  to  honor  the  remains  of  the  great 
soldier  as  they  pass  to  their  final  resting-place  under 
the  monument;  and  the  air  is  heavy  with  dirges  and 
the  boom  of  artillery,  and  all  the  millions  of  America 
are  thinking  of  the  man  who  restored  the  Union  and 
the  flag,  and  gave  to  democratic  government  a  new 
lease  of  life,  and,  as  we  may  hope  and  do  believe,  a 
permanent  place  among  the  beneficent  institutions 
of  men. 

We  had  one  game  in  the  ship  which  was  a  good 
time-passer — at  least  it  was  at  night  in  the  smoking- 
room  when  the  men  were  getting  freshened  up  from 
the  day's  monotonies  and  dullnesses.  It  was  the 
completing  of  non-complete  stories.  That  is  to  say, 
a  man  would  tell  all  of  a  story  except  the  finish, 
then  the  others  would  try  to  supply  the  ending  out 
of  their  own  invention.  When  every  one  who 
wanted  a  chance  had  had  it,  the  man  who  had  intro 
duced  the  story  would  give  it  its  original  ending  — 
then  you  could  take  your  choice.  Sometimes  the 
new  endings  turned  out  to  be  better  than  the  old 
one.  But  the  story  which  called  out  the  most  per- 


Following  the  Equator  33 

sistent  and  determined  and  ambitious  effort  was  one 
which  had  no  ending,  and  so  there  was  nothing  to 
compare  the  new-made  endings  with.  The  man 
who  told  it  said  he  could  furnish  the  particulars  up 
to  a  certain  point  only,  because  that  was  as  much  of 
the  tale  as  he  knew.  He  had  read  it  in  a  volume  of 
sketches  twenty-five  years  ago,  and  was  interrupted 
before  the  end  was  reached.  He  would  give  any 
one  fifty  dollars  who  would  finish  the  story  to  the 
satisfaction  of  a  jury  to  be  appointed  by  ourselves. 
We  appointed  a  jury  and  wrestled  with  the  tale. 
We  invented  plenty  of  endings,  but  the  jury  voted 
them  all  down.  The  jury  was  right.  It  was  a  tale 
which  the  author  of  it  may  possibly  have  completed 
satisfactorily,  and  if  he  really  had  that  good  fortune 
I  would  like  to  know  what  the  ending  was.  Any 
ordinary  man  will  find  that  the  story's  strength 
is  in  its  middle,  and  that  there  is  apparently  no 
way  to  transfer  it  to  the  close,  where  of  course 
it  ought  to  be.  In  substance  the  storiette  was  as 
follows : 

John  Brown,  aged  thirty-one,  good,  gentle,  bashful,  timid,  lived  in 
a  quiet  village  in  Missouri.  He  was  superintendent  of  the  Presbyterian 
Sunday-school.  It  was  but  a  humble  distinction;  still,  it  was  his  only 
official  one,  and  he  was  modestly  proud  of  it  and  was  devoted  to  its 
work  and  its  interests.  The  extreme  kindliness  of  his  nature  was 
recognized  by  all;  in  fact,  people  said  that  he  was  made  entirely  out  of 
good  impulses  and  bashfulness;  that  he  could  always  be  counted  upon 
for  help  when  it  was  needed,  and  for  bashfulness  both  when  it  was 
needed  and  when  it  wasn't. 

Mary  Taylor,  twenty-three,  modest,  sweet,  winning,  and  in  character 
3, 


34  Following  the  Equator 

and  person  beautiful,  was  all  in  all  to  him.  And  he  was  very  nearly 
all  in  all  to  her.  She  was  wavering,  his  hopes  were  high.  Her 
mother  had  been  in  opposition  from  the  first.  But  she  was  wavering, 
too;  he  could  see  it.  She  was  being  touched  by  his  warm  interest 
in  her  two  charity  proteges  and  by  his  contributions  toward  their 
support.  These  were  two  forlorn  and  aged  sisters  who  lived  in  a 
log  hut  in  a  lonely  place  up  a  cross-road  four  miles  from  Mrs.  Taylor's 
farm.  One  of  the  sisters  was  crazy,  and  sometimes  a  little  violent,  but 
not  often. 

At  last  the  time  seemed  ripe  for  a  final  advance,  and  Brown  gathered 
his  courage  together  and  resolved  to  make  it.  He  would  take  along  a 
contribution  of  double  the  usual  size,  and  win  the  mother  over;  with 
her  opposition  annulled,  the  rest  of  the  conquest  would  be  sure  and 
prompt. 

He  took  to  the  road  in  the  middle  of  a  placid  Sunday  afternoon  in 
the  soft  Missourian  summer,  and  he  was  equipped  properly  for  his 
mission.  He  was  clothed  all  in  white  linen,  with  a  blue  ribbon  for  a 
necktie,  and  he  had  on  dressy  tight  boots.  His  horse  and  buggy  were 
the  finest  that  the  livery  stable  could  furnish.  The  lap  robe  was  of 
white  linen,  it  was  new,  and  it  had  a  hand- worked  border  that  could 
not  be  rivaled  in  that  region  for  beauty  and  elaboration. 

When  he  was  four  miles  out  on  the  lonely  road  and  was  walking  his 
horse  over  a  wooden  bridge,  his  straw  hat  blew  off  and  fell  in  the 
creek,  and  floated  down  and  lodged  against  a  bar.  He  did  not  quite 
know  what  to  do.  He  must  have  the  hat,  that  was  manifest;  but  how 
was  he  to  get  it? 

Then  he  had  an  idea.  The  roads  were  empty,  nobody  was  stirring. 
Yes,  he  would  risk  it.  He  led  the  horse  to  the  roadside  and  set  it  to 
cropping  the  grass;  then  he  undressed  and  put  his  clothes  in  the  buggy, 
petted  the  horse  a  moment  to  secure  its  compassion  and  its  loyalty,  then 
hurried  to  the  stream.  He  swam  out  and  soon  had  the  hat.  When  he 
got  to  the  top  of  the  bank  the  horse  was  gone ! 

His  legs  almost  gave  way  under  him.  The  horse  was  walking 
leisurely  along  the  road.  Brown  trotted  after  it,  saying,  "  Whoa,  whoa, 
there's  a  good  fellow;"  but  whenever  he  got  near  enough  to  chance  a 
jump  for  the  buggy,  the  horse  quickened  its  pace  a  little  and  defeated 
him.  And  so  this  went  on,  the  naked  man  perishing  with  anxiety,  and 
expecting  every  moment  to  see  people  come  in  sight.  He  tagged  on 
and  on,  imploring  the  horse,  beseeching  the  horse,  till  he  had  left  a 


Following  the  Equator  35 

mile  behind  him,  and  was  closing  up  on  the  Taylor  premises;  then  at 
last  he  was  successful,  and  got  into  the  buggy.  He  flung  on  his  shirt, 
his  necktie,  and  his  coat;  then  reached  for  — but  he  was  too  late;  he 
sat  suddenly  down  and  pulled  up  the  lap-robe,  for  he  saw  some  one 
coming  out  of  the  gate  —  a  woman,  he  thought.  He  wheeled  the 
horse  to  the  left,  and  struck  briskly  up  the  cross-road.  It  was  perfectly 
straight,  and  exposed  on  both  sides;  but  there  were  woods  and  a  sharp 
turn  three  miles  ahead,  and  he  was  very  grateful  when  he  got  there. 
As  he  passed  around  the  turn  he  slowed  down  to  a  walk,  and  reached 
for  his  tr  —  too  late  again. 

He  had  come  upon  Mrs.  Enderby,  Mrs.  Glossop,  Mrs.  Taylor, 
and  Mary.  They  were  on  foot,  and  seemed  tired  and  excited. 
They  came  at  once  to  the  buggy  and  shook  hands,  and  all  spoke 
at  once,  and  said,  eagerly  and  earnestly,  how  glad  they  were  that 
he  was  come,  and  how  fortunate  it  was.  And  Mrs.  Enderby  said, 
impressively : 

"  It  looks  like  an  accident,  his  coming  at  such  a  time  ;  but  let 
no  one  profane  it  with  such  a  name;  he  was  sent  —  sent  from  on 
high." 

They  were  all  moved,  and  Mrs.  Glossop  said  in  an  awed  voice : 

"  Sarah  Enderby,  you  never  said  a  truer  word  in  your  life.  This 
is  no  accident,  it  is  a  special  Providence.  He  "was  sent.  He  is  an 
angel  —  an  angel  as  truly  as  ever  angel  was  —  an  angel  of  deliver 
ance.  /  say  angel,  Sarah  Enderby,  and  will  have  no  other  word. 
Don't  let  any  one  ever  say  to  me  again,  that  there's  no  such  thing 
as  special  Providences;  for  if  this  isn't  one,  let  them  account  for  it 
that  can." 

"I  know  it's  so,"  said  Mrs.  Taylor,  fervently.  "John  Brown,  I 
could  worship  you;  I  could  go  down  on  my  knees  to  you.  Didn't 
something  tell  you?  —  didn't  you  feel  that  you  were  sent?  I  could  kiss 
the  hem  of  your  lap-robe." 

He  was  not  able  to  speak;  he  was  helpless  with  shame  and  fright. 
Mrs.  Taylor  went  on : 

"Why,  just  look  at  it  all  around,  Julia  Glossop.  Any  person  can 
see  the  hand  of  Providence  in  it.  Here  at  noon  what  do  we  see?  We 
see  the  smoke  rising.  I  speak  up  and  say,  'That's  the  Old  People's 
cabin  afire.'  Didn't  I,  Julia  Glossop?  " 

"The   very   words  you   said,    Nancy   Taylor.     I  was   as  close  to 


36  Following  the  Equator 

you  as  I  am  now,  and  I  heard  them.  You  may  have  said  hut  instead 
of  cabin,  but  in  substance  it's  the  same.  And  you  were  looking 
pale,  too." 

"Pale?  I  was  that  pale  that  if  —  why,  you  just  compare  it  with 
this  lap-robe.  Then  the  next  thing  I  said  was,  *  Mary  Taylor,  tell  the 
hired  man  to  rig  up  the  team  —  we'll  go  to  the  rescue.'  And  she  said, 
'  Mother,  don't  you  know  you  told  him  he  could  drive  to  see  his  people, 
and  stay  over  Sunday?'  And  it  was  just  so.  I  declare  for  it,  I  had 
forgotten  it.  'Then,'  said  I,  '  we'll  go  afoot.'  And  go  we  did.  And 
found  Sarah  Enderby  on  the  road." 

"  And  we  all  went  together,"  said  Mrs.  Enderby.  "  And  found  the 
cabin  set  fire  to  and  burnt  down  by  the  crazy  one,  and  the  poor  old 
things  so  old  and  feeble  that  they  couldn't  go  afoot.  And  we  got  them 
to  a  shady  place  and  made  them  as  comfortable  as  we  could,  and  began 
to  wonder  which  way  to  turn  to  find  some  way  to  get  them  conveyed  to 
Nancy  Taylor's  house.  And  I  spoke  up  and  said  —  now  what  did  I 
say?  Didn't  I  say,  '  Providence  will  provide  '  ?  " 

"  Why  sure  as  you  live,  so  you  did  !     I  had  forgotten  it." 

"So  had  I,"  said  Mrs.  Glossop  and  Mrs.  Taylor;  "but  you  cer 
tainly  said\\..  Now  wasn't  that  remarkable?  " 

"Yes,  I  said  it.  And  then  we  went  to  Mr.  Moseley's,  two  miles, 
and  all  of  them  were  gone  to  the  camp-meeting  over  on  Stony  Fork; 
and  then  we  came  all  the  way  back,  two  miles,  and  then  here,  another 
mile —  and  Providence  has  provided.  You  see  it  yourselves." 

They  gazed  at  each  other  awe-struck,  and  lifted  their  hands  and 
said  in  unison : 

"  It's  per-fectly  wonderful." 

"And  then,"  said  Mrs.  Glossop,  "what  do  you  think  we  had 
better  do  —  let  Mr.  Brown  drive  the  Old  People  to  Nancy  Taylor's  one 
at  a  time,  or  put  both  of  them  in  the  buggy,  and  him  lead  the  horse  ?  ' ' 

Brown  gasped. 

"Now,  then,  that's  a  question,"  said  Mrs.  Enderby.  "You  see, 
we  are  all  tired  out,  and  any  way  we  fix  it  it's  going  to  be  difficult. 
For  if  Mr.  Brown  takes  both  of  them,  at  least  one  of  us  must  go  back 
to  help  him,  for  he  can't  load  them  into  the  buggy  by  himself,  and  they 
so  helpless." 

"That  is  so,"  said  Mrs.  Taylor.  "It  doesn't  look  —  oh,  how 
would  this  do!  —  one  of  us  drive  there  with  Mr.  Brown,  and  the 
rest  of  you  go  along  to  my  house  and  get  things  ready.  I'll  go  with 


Following  the  Equator  37 

him.     He   and  I  together  can  lift  one  of  the  Old   People   into  the 
buggy;   then  drive  her  to  my  house  and  — 

"But  who  will  take  care  of  the  other  one?"  said  Mrs.  Enderby. 
"  We  musn't  leave  her  there  in  the  woods  alone,  you  know  —  especially 
the  crazy  one.  There  and  back  is  eight  miles,  you  see." 

They  had  all  been  sitting  on  the  grass  beside  the  buggy  for  a  while, 
now,  trying  to  rest  their  weary  bodies.  They  fell  silent  a  moment  or 
two,  and  struggled  in  thought  over  the  baffling  situation;  then  Mrs. 
Enderby  brightened  and  said : 

"  I  think  I've  got  the  idea,  now.  You  see,  we  can't  walk  any 
more.  Think  what  we've  done;  four  miles  there,  two  to  Moseley's, 
is  six,  then  back  to  here  —  nine  miles  since  noon,  and  not  a  bite  to 
eat:  I  declare  I  don't  see  how  we've  done  it;  and  as  for  me,  I  am 
just  famishing.  Now,  somebody's  got  to  go  back,  to  help  Mr. 
Brown  —  there's  no  getting  around  that;  but  whoever  goes  has  got 
to  ride,  not  walk.  So  my  idea  is  this:  one  of  us  to  ride  back 
with  Mr.  Brown,  then  ride  to  Nancy  Taylor's  house  with  one  of  the 
Old  People,  leaving  Mr.  Brown  to  keep  the  other  old  one  company, 
you  all  to  go  now  to  Nancy's  and  rest  and  wait;  then  one  of  you 
drive  back  and  get  the  other  one  and  drive  her  to  Nancy's,  and 
Mr.  Brown  walk." 

"  Splendid !  "  they  all  cried.  "  Oh,  that  will  do  —  that  will  answer 
perfectly."  And  they  all  said  that  Mrs.  Enderby  had  the  best  head  for 
planning  in  the  company;  and  they  said  that  they  wondered  that  they 
hadn't  thought  of  this  simple  plan  themselves.  They  hadn't  meant  to 
take  back  the  compliment,  good  simple  souls,  and  didn't  know  they  had 
done  it.  After  a  consultation  it  was  decided  that  Mrs.  Enderby  should 
drive  back  with  Brown,  she  being  entitled  to  the  distinction  because  she 
had  invented  the  plan.  Everything  now  being  satisfactorily  arranged 
and  settled,  the  ladies  rose,  relieved  and  happy,  and  brushed  down 
their  gowns,  and  three  of  them  started  homeward;  Mrs.  Enderby  set 
her  foot  on  the  buggy  step  and  was  about  to  climb  in,  when  Brown 
found  a  remnant  of  his  voice  and  gasped  out  — 

"  Please  Mrs.  Enderby,  call  them  back  —  I  am  very  weak;  I  can't 
walk,  I  can't  indeed." 

"Why,  dear  Mr.  Brown  !  You  do  look  pale;  I  am  ashamed  of 
myself  that  I  didn't  notice  it  sooner.  Come  back  —  all  of  you !  Mr. 
Brown  is  not  well.  Is  there  anything  I  can  do  for  you,  Mr.  Brown?  — 
I'm  real  sorry.  Are  you  in  pain?  " 


38  Following  the  Equator 

"No,  madam,  only  weak;  I  am  not  sick,  but  only  just  weak  — 
lately;  not  long,  but  just  lately." 

The  others  came  back,  and  poured  out  their  sympathies  and  com 
miserations,  and  were  full  of  self-reproaches  for  not  having  noticed  how 
pale  he  was.  And  they  at  once  struck  out  a  new  plan,  aud  soon  agreed 
that  it  was  by  far  the  best  of  all.  They  would  all  go  to  Nancy  Taylor's 
house  and  see  to  Brown's  needs  first.  He  could  lie  on  the  sofa  in  the 
parlor,  and  while  Mrs.  Taylor  and  Mary  took  care  of  him  the  other  two 
ladies  would  take  the  buggy  and  go  and  get  one  of  the  Old  People,  and 
leave  one  of  themselves  with  the  other  one,  and  — 

By  this  time,  without  any  solicitation,  they  were  at  the  horse's 
head  and  were  beginning  to  turn  him  around.  The  danger  was 
imminent,  but  Brown  found  his  voice  again  and  saved  himself.  He 
said  — 

"  But  ladies,  you  are  overlooking  something  which  makes  the  plan 
impracticable.  You  see,  if  you  bring  one  of  them  home,  and  one 
remains  behind  with  the  other,  there  will  be  three  persons  there  when 
one  of  you  comes  back  for  that  other,  for  some  one  must  drive  the 
buggy  back,  wA  three  can't  come  home  in  it." 

They  all  exclaimed,  "Why,  sure-ly,  that  is  so!"  and  they  were  all 
perplexed  again. 

"  Dear,  dear,  what  can  we  do?  "  said  Mrs.  Glossop;  "it  is  the  most 
mixed-up  thing  that  ever  was.  The  fox  and  the  goose  and  the  corn  and 
things  —  oh,  dear,  they  are  nothing  to  it." 

They  sat  wearily  down  once  more,  to  further  torture  their  tormented 
heads  for  a  plan  that  would  work.  Presently  Mary  offered  a  plan;  it 
was  her  first  effort.  She  said: 

"  I  am  young  and  strong,  and  am  refreshed,  now.  Take  Mr.  Brown 
to  our  house,  and  give  him  help — you  see  how  plainly  he  needs  it.  I 
will  go  back  and  take  care  of  the  Old  People;  I  can  be  there  in  twenty 
minutes.  You  can  go  on  and  do  what  you  first  started  to  do  —  wait  on 
the  main  road  at  our  house  until  somebody  comes  along  with  a  wagon; 
then  send  and  bring  away  the  three  of  us.  You  won't  have  to  wait 
long;  the  farmers  will  soon  be  coming  back  from  town  now.  I  will 
keep  old  Polly  patient  and  cheered  up  —  the  crazy  one  doesn't 
need  it." 

This  plan  was  discussed  and  accepted;  it  seemed  the  best  that  could 
be  done,  in  the  circumstances,  and  the  Old  People  must  be  getting  dis 
couraged  by  this  time. 


Following  the  Equator  39 

Brown  felt  relieved,  and  was  deeply  thankful.  Let  him  once  get  to 
the  main  road  and  he  would  find  a  way  to  escape. 

Then  Mrs.  Taylor  said: 

"The  evening  chill  will  be  coming  on,  pretty  soon,  and  those  poor 
old  burnt-out  things  will  need  some  kind  of  covering.  Take  the  lap- 
robe  with  you,  dear." 

"Very  well,  Mother,  I  will." 

She  stepped  to  the  buggy  and  put  out  her  hand  to  take  it  — 

That  was  the  end  of  the  tale.  The  passenger  who  told  it  said  that 
when  he  read  the  story  twenty-five  years  ago  in  a  train  he  was  inter 
rupted  at  that  point  —  the  train  jumped  off  a  bridge. 

At  first  we  thought  we  could  finish  the  story  quite  easily,  and  we  set 
to  work  with  confidence;  but  it  soon  began  to  appear  that  it  was  not  a 
simple  thing,  but  difficult  and  baffling.  This  was  on  account  of  Brown's 
character  —  great  generosity  and  kindliness,  but  complicated  with 
unusual  shyness  and  diffidence,  particularly  in  the  presence  of  ladies. 
There  was  his  love  for  Mary,  in  a  hopeful  state  but  not  yet  secure  — 
just  in  a  condition,  indeed,  where  its  affair  must  be  handled  with  great 
tact,  and  no  mistakes  made,  no  offense  given.  And  there  were  the 
mother  —  wavering,  half  willing  —  by  adroit  and  flawless  diplomacy  to 
be  won  over,  now,  or  perhaps  never  at  all.  Also,  there  was  the  helpless 
Old  People  yonder  in  the  woods  waiting  —  their  fate  and  Brown's  hap 
piness  to  be  determined  by  what  Brown  should  do  within  the  next  two 
seconds.  Mary  was  reaching  for  the  lap-robe;  Brown  must  decide  — 
there  was  no  time  to  be  lost. 

Of  course  none  but  a  happy  ending  of  the  story  would  be  accepted 
by  the  jury;  the  finish  must  find  Brown  in  high  credit  with  the  ladies, 
his  behavior  without  blemish,  his  modesty  unwounded,  his  character  for 
self-sacrifice  maintained,  the  Old  People  rescued  through  him,  their  ben 
efactor,  all  the  party  proud  of  him,  happy  in  him,  his  praises  on  all  their 
tongues. 

We  tried  to  arrange  this,  but  it  was  beset  with  persistent  and  irrecon 
cilable  difficulties.  We  saw  that  Brown's  shyness  would  not  allow  him 
to  give  up  the  lap-robe.  This  would  offend  Mary  and  her  mother;  and 
it  would  surprise  the  other  ladies,  partly  because  this  stinginess  toward 
the  suffering  Old  People  would  be  out  of  character  with  Brown,  and 
partly  because  he  was  a  special  Providence  and  could  not  properly  act 
so.  If  asked  to  explain  his  conduct,  his  shyness  would  not  allow  him 
to  tell  the  truth,  and  lack  of  invention  and  practice  would  find  him 


40  Following  the  Equator 

incapable  of  contriving  a  lie  that  would  wash.     We  worked  at   the 
troublesome  problem  until  three  in  the  morning. 

Meantime  Mary  was  still  reaching  for  the  lap-robe.  We  gave  it  up, 
and  decided  to  let  her  continue  to  reach.  It  is  the  reader's  privilege  to 
determine  for  himself  how  the  thing  came  out. 


CHAPTER  III. 

It  is  more  trouble  to  make  a  maxim  than  it  is  to  do  right. 

—Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

ON  the  seventh  day  out  we  saw  a  dim  vast  bulk 
standing  up  out  of  the  wastes  of  the  Pacific 
and  knew  that  that  spectral  promontory  was  Diamond 
Head,  a  piece  of  this  world  which  I  had  not  seen 
before  for  twenty-nine  years.  So  we  were  nearing 
Honolulu,  the  capital  city  of  the  Sandwich  Islands 
—  those  islands  which  to  me  were  Paradise ;  a  Para 
dise  which  I  had  been  longing  all  those  years  to  see 
again.  Not  any  other  thing  in  the  world  could  have 
stirred  me  as  the  sight  of  that  great  rock  did. 

In  the  night  we  anchored  a  mile  from  shore. 
Through  my  port  I  could  see  the  twinkling  lights  of 
Honolulu  and  the  dark  bulk  of  the  mountain-range 
that  stretched  away  right  and  left.  I  could  not 
make  out  the  beautiful  Nuuana  valley,  but  I  knew 
where  it  lay,  and  remembered  how  it  used  to  look  in 
the  old  times.  We  used  to  ride  up  it  on  horseback 
in  those  days  —  we  young  people  —  and  branch  off 
and  gather  bones  in  a  sandy  region  where  one  of 
the  first  Kamehameha's  battles  was  fought.  He  was 
a  remarkable  man,  for  a  king;  and  he  was  also  a 

(4O 


42 


Following  the  Equator 


^L^^J^ 


FACSIMILE  PAGE   FROM   THE  AUTHOR'S  NOTE  BOOK. 


Following  the  Equator  43 

remarkable  man  for  a  savage.  He  was  a  mere 
kinglet  and  of  little  or  no  consequence  at  the  time 
of  Captain  Cook's  arrival  in  1788;  but  about  four 
years  afterward  he  conceived  the  idea  of  enlarging 
his  sphere  of  influence.  That  is  a  courteous  modern 
phrase  which  means  robbing  your  neighbor  —  for 
your  neighbor's  benefit;  and  the  great  theater  of  its 
benevolences  is  Africa.  Kamehameha  went  to  war, 
and  in  the  course  of  ten  years  he  whipped  out  all  the 
other  kings  and  made  himself  master  of  every  one 
of  the  nine  or  ten  islands  that  form  the  group.  But 
he  did  more  than  that.  He  bought  ships,  freighted 
them  with  sandal  wood  and  other  native  products, 
and  sent  them  as  far  as  South  America  and  China ; 
he  sold  to  his  savages  the  foreign  stuffs  and  tools 
and  utensils  which  came  back  in  these  ships,  and 
started  the  march  of  civilization.  It  is  doubtful  if 
the  match  to  this  extraordinary  thing  is  to  be  found 
in  the  history  of  any  other  savage.  Savages  are 
eager  to  learn  from  the  white  man  any  new  way  to 
kill  each  other,  but  it  is  not  their  habit  to  seize 
with  avidity  and  apply  with  energy  the  larger  and 
nobler  ideas  which  he  offers  them.  The  details  of 
Kamehameha' s  history  show  that  he  was  always 
hospitably  ready  to  examine  the  white  man's  ideas, 
and  that  he  exercised  a  tidy  discrimination  in  making 
his  selections  from  the  samples  placed  on  view. 

A  shrewder  discrimination  than  was  exhibited  by 
his  son  and  successor,  Liholiho,  I  think.  Liholiho 
could  have  qualified  as  a  reformer,  perhaps,  but  as 


44  Following  the  Equator 

a  king  he  was  a  mistake.  A  mistake  because  he 
tried  to  be  both  king  and  reformer.  This  is  mixing 
fire  and  gunpowder  together.  A  king  has  no  proper 
business  with  reforming.  His  best  policy  is  to  keep 
things  as  they  are;  and  if  he  can't  do  that,  he  ought 
to  try  to  make  them  worse  than  they  are.  This  is 
not  guesswork;  I  have  thought  over  this  matter  a 
good  deal,  so  that  if  I  should  ever  have  a  chance  to 
become  a  king  I  would  know  how  to  conduct  the 
business  in  the  best  way. 

When  Liholiho  succeeded  his  father  he  found 
himself  possessed  of  an  equipment  of  royal  tools  and 
safeguards  which  a  wiser  king  would  have  known 
how  to  husband,  and  judiciously  employ,  and  make 
profitable.  The  entire  country  was  under  the  one 
scepter,  and  his  was  that  scepter.  There  was  an 
Established  Church,  and  he  was  the  head  of  it. 
There  was  a  Standing  Army,  and  he  was  the  head  of 
that;  an  Army  of  114  privates  under  command  of 
27  Generals  and  a  Field  Marshal.  There  was  a 
proud  and  ancient  Hereditary  Nobility.  There  was 
still  one  other  asset.  This  was  the  tabu  —  an  agent 
endowed  with  a  mysterious  and  stupendous  power, 
an  agent  not  found  among  the  properties  of  any 
European  monarch,  a  tool  of  inestimable  value  in 
the  business.  Liholiho  was  headmaster  of  the  tabu. 
The  tabu  was  the  most  ingenious  and  effective  of 
all  the  inventions  that  has  ever  been  devised  for 
keeping  a  people's  privileges  satisfactorily  restricted. 

It  required  the  sexes  to  live  in  separate  houses. 


Following  the  Equator  45 

It  did  not  allow  people  to  eat  in  either  house ;  they 
must  eat  in  another  place.  It  did  not  allow  a  man's 
woman-folk  to  enter  his  house.  It  did  not  allow  the 
sexes  to  eat  together ;  the  men  must  eat  first,  and 
the  women  must  wait  on  them.  Then  the  women 
could  eat  what  was  left — if  anything  was  left — and 
wait  on  themselves.  I  mean,  if  anything  of  a  coarse 
or  unpalatable  sort  was  left,  the  women  could  have 
it.  But  not  the  good  things,  the  fine  things,  the 
choice  things,  such  as  pork,  poultry,  bananas,  cocoa- 
nuts,  the  choicer  varieties  of  fish,  and  so  on.  By 
the  tabu,  all  these  were  sacred  to  the  men;  the 
women  spent  their  lives  longing  for  them  and  won 
dering  what  they  might  taste  like;  and  they  died 
without  finding  out. 

These  rules,  as  you  see,  were  quite  simple  and 
clear.  It  was  easy  to  remember  them ;  and  useful. 
For  the  penalty  for  infringing  any  rule  in  the  whole 
list  was  death.  Those  women  easily  learned  to  put 
up  with  shark  and  taro  and  dog  for  a  diet  when 
the  other  things  were  so  expensive. 

It  was  death  for  any  one  to  walk  upon  tabu'd 
ground;  or  defile  a  tabu'd  thing  with  his  touch;  or 
fail  in  due  servility  to  a  chief;  or  step  upon  the 
king's  shadow.  The  nobles  and  the  King  and  the 
priests  were  always  suspending  little  rags  here  and 
there  and  yonder,  to  give  notice  to  the  people  that 
the  decorated  spot  or  thing  was  tabu,  and  death 
lurking  near.  The  struggle  for  life  was  difficult  and 
chancy  in  the  islands  in  those  days. 


46  Following  the  Equator 

Thus  advantageously  was  the  new  king  situated. 
Will  it  be  believed  that  the  first  thing  he  did  was  to 
destroy  his  Established  Church,  root  and  branch? 
He  did  indeed  do  that.  To  state  the  case  figura 
tively,  he  was  a  prosperous  sailor  who  burnt  his  ship 
and  took  to  a  raft.  This  Church  was  a  horrid 
thing.  It  heavily  oppressed  the  people;  it  kept 
them  always  trembling  in  the  gloom  of  mysterious 
threatenings ;  it  slaughtered  them  in  sacrifice  before 
its  grotesque  idols  of  wood  and  stone ;  it  cowed 
them,  it  terrorized  them,  it  made  them  slaves  to  its 
priests,  and  through  the  priests  to  the  king.  It  was 
the  best  friend  a  king  could  have,  and  the  most  de 
pendable.  To  a  professional  reformer  who  should 
annihilate  so  frightful  and  so  devastating  a  power  as 
this  Church,  reverence  and  praise  would  be  due; 
but  to  a  king  who  should  do  it,  could  properly  be 
due  nothing  but  reproach ;  reproach  softened  by 
sorrow;  sorrow  for  his  unfitness  for  his  position. 

He  destroyed  his  Established  Church,  and  his 
kingdom  is  a  republic  to-day,  in  consequence  of 
that  act. 

When  he  destroyed  the  Church  and  burned  the 
idols  he  did  a  mighty  thing  for  civilization  and  for 
his  people's  weal  —  but  it  was  not  "business."  It 
was  unkingly,  it  was  inartistic.  It  made  trouble  for 
his  line.  The  American  missionaries  arrived  while 
the  burned  idols  were  still  smoking.  They  found 
the  nation  without  a  religion,  and  they  repaired  the 
defect.  They  offered  their  own  religion  and  it  was 


Following  the  Equator  47 

gladly  received.  But  it  was  no  support  to  arbitrary 
kingship,  and  so  the  kingly  power  began  to  weaken 
from  that  day.  Forty-seven  years  later,  when  I 
was  in  the  islands,  Kamehameha  V.  was  trying  to 
repair  Liholiho's  blunder,  and  not  succeeding.  He 
had  set  up  an  Established  Church  and  made  himself 
the  head  of  it.  But  it  was  only  a  pinchbeck  thing, 
an  imitation,  a  bauble,  an  empty  show.  It  had  no 
power,  no  value  for  a  king.  It  could  not  harry  or 
burn  or  slay,  it  in  no  way  resembled  the  admirable 
machine  which  Liholiho  destroyed.  It  was  an 
Established  Church  without  an  Establishment;  all 
the  people  were  Dissenters, 

Long  before  that,  the  kingship  had  itself  become 
but  a  name,  a  show.  At  an  early  day  the  mission 
aries  had  turned  it  into  something  very  much  like  a 
republic ;  and  here  lately  the  business  whites  have 
turned  it  into  something  exactly  like  it. 

In  Captain  Cook's  time  (1778),  the  native  popula 
tion  of  the  islands  was  estimated  at  400,000;  in 
1836  at  something  short  of  200,000;  in  1866  at 
50,000;  it  is  to-day,  per  census,  25,000.  All  in 
telligent  people  praise  Kamehameha  I.  and  Liholiho 
for  conferring  upon  the  people  the  great  boon  of 
civilization.  I  would  do  it  myself,  but  my  intelli 
gence  is  out  of  repair,  now,  from  overwork. 

When  I  was  in  the  islands  nearly  a  generation  ago, 
I  was  acquainted  with  a  young  American  couple  who 
had  among  their  belongings  an  attractive  little  son  of 
the  age  of  seven  —  attractive  but  not  practicably  com- 


48  Following  the  Equator 

panionable  with  me,  because  he  knew  no  English, 
He  had  played  from  his  birth  with  the  little  Kanakas 
on  his  father's  plantation,  and  had  preferred  their 
language  and  would  learn  no  other.  The  family  re 
moved  to  America  a  month  after  I  arrived  in  the 
islands,  and  straightway  the  boy  began  to  lose  his 
Kanaka  and  pick  up  English.  By  the  time  he  was 
twelve  he  hadn't  a  word  of  Kanaka  left;  the  language 
had  wholly  departed  from  his  tongue  and  from  his 
comprehension.  Nine  years  later,  when  he  was 
twenty-one,  I  came  upon  the  family  in  one  of  the 
lake  towns  of  New  York,  and  the  mother  told  me 
about  an  adventure  which  her  son  had  been  having. 
By  trade  he  was  now  a  professional  diver.  A 
passenger  boat  had  been  caught  in  a  storm  on  the 
lake,  and  had  gone  down,  carrying  her  people  with 
her.  A  few  days  later  the  young  diver  descended, 
with  his  armor  on,  and  entered  the  berth-saloon  of 
the  boat,  and  stood  at  the  foot  of  the  companion- 
way,  with  his  hand  on  the  rail,  peering  through  the 
dim  water.  Presently  something  touched  him  on 
the  shoulder,  and  he  turned  and  found  a  dead  man 
swaying  and  bobbing  about  him  and  seemingly  in 
specting  him  inquiringly.  He  was  paralyzed  with 
fright.  His  entry  had  disturbed  the  water,  and  now 
he  discerned  a  number  of  dim  corpses  making  for 
him  and  wagging  their  heads  and  swaying  their 
bodies  like  sleepy  people  trying  to  dance.  His 
senses  forsook  him,  and  in  that  condition  he  was 
drawn  to  the  surface.  He  was  put  to  bed  at  home, 


Following  the  Equator  49 

and  was  soon  very  ill.  During  some  days  he  had 
seasons  of  delirium  which  lasted  several  hours  at  a 
time ;  and  while  they  lasted  he  talked  Kanaka  in 
cessantly  and  glibly;  and  Kanaka  only.  He  was 
still  very  ill,  and  he  talked  to  me  in  that  tongue; 
but  I  did  not  understand  it,  of  course.  The  doctor- 
books  tell  us  that  cases  like  this  are  not  uncommon. 
Then  the  doctors  ought  to  study  the  cases  and  find 
out  how  to  multiply  them.  Many  languages  and 
things  get  mislaid  in  a  person's  head,  and  stay  mis 
laid  for  lack  of  this  remedy. 

Many  memories  of  my  former  visit  to  the  islands 
came  up  in  my  mind  while  we  lay  at  anchor  in  front 
of  Honolulu  that  night.  And  pictures  —  pictures 
—  pictures  —  an  enchanting  procession  of  them  ! 
I  was  impatient  for  the  morning  to  come. 

When  it  came  it  brought  disappointment,  of 
course.  Cholera  had  broken  out  in  the  town,  and 
we  were  not  allowed  to  have  any  communication 
with  the  shore.  Thus  suddenly  did  my  dream  of 
twenty-nine  years  go  to  ruin.  Messages  came  from 
friends,  but  the  friends  themselves  I  was  not  to  have 
any  sight  of.  My  lecture-hall  was  ready,  but  I  was 
not  to  see  that,  either. 

Several  of  our  passengers  belonged  in  Honolulu, 
and  these  were  sent  ashore;  but  nobody  could  go 
ashore  and  return.  There  were  people  on  shore 
who  were  booked  to  go  with  us  to  Australia,  but  we 
could  not  receive  them;  to  do  it  would  cost  us  a 
quarantine-term  in  Sydney.  They  could  have 
4* 


50  Following  the  Equator 

escaped  the  day  before,  by  ship  to  San  Francisco ; 
but  the  bars  had  been  put  up,  now,  and  they  might 
have  to  wait  weeks  before  any  ship  could  venture  to 
give  them  a  passage  any  whither.  And  there  were 
hardships  for  others.  An  elderly  lady  and  her  son, 
recreation  seekers  from  Massachusetts,  had  wandered 
westward,  further  and  further  from  home,  always 
intending  to  take  the  return  track,  but  always  con 
cluding  to  go  still  a  little  further ;  and  now  here  they 
were  at  anchor  before  Honolulu  —  positively  their 
last  westward-bound  indulgence  —  they  had  made  up 
their  minds  to  that  —  but  where  is  the  use  of  making 
up  your  mind  in  this  world?  It  is  usually  a  waste 
of  time  to  do  it.  These  two  would  have  to  stay 
with  us  as  far  as  Australia.  Then  they  could  go  on 
around  the  world,  or  go  back  the  way  they  had 
come;  the  distance  and  the  accommodations  and 
outlay  of  time  would  be  just  the  same,  whichever  of 
the  two  routes  they  might  elect  to  take.  Think  of 
it:  a  projected  excursion  of  five  hundred  miles 
gradually  enlarged,  without  any  elaborate  degree  of 
intention,  to  a  possible  twenty-four  thousand.  How 
ever,  they  were  used  to  extensions  by  this  time,  and 
did  not  mind  this  new  one  much. 

And  we  had  with  us  a  lawyer  from  Victoria,  who 
had  been  sent  out  by  the  Government  on  an  inter 
national  matter,  and  he  had  brought  his  wife  with 
him  and  left  the  children  at  home  with  the  servants 
—  and  now  what  was  to  be  done?  Go  ashore 
amongst  the  cholera  and  take  the  risks?  Most  cer- 


Following  the  Equator  51 

tainly  not.  They  decided  to  go  on,  to  the  Fiji 
islands,  wait  there  a  fortnight  for  the  next  ship,  and 
then  sail  for  home.  They  couldn't  foresee  that  they 
wouldn't  see  a  homeward-bound  ship  again  for  six 
weeks,  and  that  no  word  could  come  to  them  from 
the  children,  and  no  word  go  from  them  to  the 
children  in  all  that  time.  It  is  easy  to  make  plans 
in  this  world ;  even  a  cat  can  do  it ;  and  when  one 
is  out  in  those  remote  oceans  it  is  noticeable  that  a 
cat's  plans  and  a  man's  are  worth  about  the  same. 
There  is  much  the  same  shrinkage  in  both,  in  the 
matter  of  values. 

There  was  nothing  for  us  to  do  but  sit  about  the 
decks  in  the  shade  of  the  awnings  and  look  at  the 
distant  shore.  We  lay  in  luminous  blue  water; 
shoreward  the  water  was  green  —  green  and  brilliant ; 
at  the  shore  itself  it  broke  in  a  long  white  ruffle,  and 
with  no  crash,  no  sound  that  we  could  hear.  The 
town  was  buried  under  a  mat  of  foliage  that  looked 
like  a  cushion  of  moss.  The  silky  mountains  were 
clothed  in  soft,  rich  splendors  of  melting  color,  and 
some  of  the  cliffs  were  veiled  in  slanting  mists.  I 
recognized  it  all.  It  was  just  as  I  had  seen  it  long 
before,  with  nothing  of  its  beauty  lost,  nothing  of 
its  charm  wanting. 

A  change  had  come,  but  that  was  political,  and 
not  visible  from  the  ship.  The  monarchy  of  my  day 
was  gone,  and  a  republic  was  sitting  in  its  seat.  It 
was  not  a  material  change.  The  old  imitation 
pomps,  the  fuss  and  feathers,  have  departed,  and 


52  Following  the  Equator 

the  royal  trademark  —  that  is  about  all  that  one 
could  miss,  I  suppose.  That  imitation  monarchy 
was  grotesque  enough,  in  my  time;  if  it  had  held 
on  another  thirty  years  it  would  have  been  a  mon 
archy  without  subjects  of  the  king's  race. 

We  had  a  sunset  of  a  very  fine  sort.  The  vast  plain 
of  the  sea  was  marked  off  in  bands  of  sharply-con 
trasted  colors :  great  stretches  of  dark  blue,  others 
of  purple,  others  of  polished  bronze;  the  billowy 
mountains  showed  all  sorts  of  dainty  browns  and 
greens,  blues  and  purples  and  blacks,  and  the 
rounded  velvety  backs  of  certain  of  them  made  one 
want  to  stroke  them,  as  one  would  the  sleek  back  of 
a  cat.  The  long,  sloping  promontory  projecting 
into  the  sea  at  the  west  turned  dim  and  leaden  and 
spectral,  then  became  suffused  with  pink  —  dissolved 
itself  in  a  pink  dream,  so  to  speak,  it  seemed  so  airy 
and  unreal.  Presently  the  cloud-rack  was  flooded 
with  fiery  splendors,  and  these  were  copied  on  the 
surface  of  the  sea,  and  it  made  one  drunk  with  de 
light  to  look  upon  it. 

From  talks  with  certain  of  our  passengers  whose 
home  was  Honolulu,  and  from  a  sketch  by  Mrs. 
Mary  H.  Krout,  I  was  able  to  perceive  what  the 
Honolulu  of  to-day  is,  as  compared  with  the  Hono 
lulu  of  my  time.  In  my  time  it  was  a  beautiful  little 
town,  made  up  of  snow-white  wooden  cottages  deli- 
ciously  smothered  in  tropical  vines  and  flowers  and 
trees  and  shrubs;  and  its  coral  roads  and  streets 
were  hard  and  smooth,  and  as  white  as  the  houses. 


Following  the  Equator  53 

The  outside  aspects  of  the  place  suggested  the  pres 
ence  of  a  modest  and  comfortable  prosperity  —  a 
general  prosperity  —  perhaps  one  might  strengthen 
the  term  and  say  universal.  There  were  no  fine 
houses,  no  fine  furniture.  There  were  no  decora 
tions.  Tallow  candles  furnished  the  light  for  the 
bedrooms,  a  whale-oil  lamp  furnished  it  for  the 
parlor.  Native  matting  served  as  carpeting.  In  the 
parlor  one  would  find  two  or  three  lithographs  on 
the  walls  —  portraits  as  a  rule :  Kamehameha  IV. , 
Louis  Kossuth,  Jenny  Lind ;  and  maybe  an  engrav 
ing  or  two :  Rebecca  at  the  Well,  Moses  smiting  the 
rock,  Joseph's  servants  finding  the  cup  in  Benjamin's 
sack.  There  would  be  a  center  table,  with  books  of 
a  tranquil  sort  on  it:  The  Whole  Duty  of  Man, 
Baxter's  Saints'  Rest,  Fox's  Martyrs,  Tupper's 
Proverbial  Philosophy,  bound  copies  of  The  Mis 
sionary  Herald  and  of  Father  Damon's  Seaman's 
Friend.  A  melodeon ;  a  music  stand,  with  Willie, 
We  Have  Missed  You,  Star  of  the  Evening,  Roll  on 
Silver  Moon,  Are  We  Most  There,  I  Would  not 
Live  Alway,  and  other  songs  of  love  and  sentiment, 
together  with  an  assortment  of  hymns.  A  what 
not  with  semi-globular  glass  paper-weights,  enclosing 
miniature  pictures  of  ships,  New  England  rural  snow 
storms,  and  the  like;  sea-shells  with  Bible  texts 
carved  on  them  in  cameo  style;  native  curios; 
whale's  tooth  with  full-rigged  ship  carved  on  it. 
There  was  nothing  reminiscent  of  foreign  parts,  for 
nobody  had  been  abroad.  Trios  wsre  made  to  San 


54  Following  the  Equator 

Francisco,  but  that  could  not  be  called  going  abroad. 
Comprehensively  speaking,  nobody  traveled. 

But  Honolulu  has  grown  wealthy  since  then,  and 
of  course  wealth  has  introduced  changes ;  some  of 
the  old  simplicities  have  disappeared.  Here  is  a 
modern  house,  as  pictured  by  Mrs.  Krout: 

' '  Almost  every  house  is  surrounded  by  extensive  lawns  and  gardens 
enclosed  by  walls  of  volcanic  stone  or  by  thick  hedges  of  the  brilliant 
hibiscus. 

"The  houses  are  most  tastefully  and  comfortably  furnished;  the 
floors  are  either  of  hard  wood  covered  with  rugs  or  with  fine  Indian 
matting,  while  there  is  a  preference,  as  in  most  warm  countries,  for 
rattan  or  bamboo  furniture;  there  are  the  usual  accessories  of  bric-a-brac, 
pictures,  books,  and  curios  from  all  parts  of  the  world,  for  these  island- 
dwellers  are  indefatigable  travelers. 

' '  Nearly  every  house  has  what  is  called  a  lanai.  It  is  a  large 
apartment,  roofed,  floored,  open  on  three  sides,  with  a  door  or  a  draped 
archway  opening  into  the  drawing-room.  Frequently  the  roof  is  formed 
by  the  thick  interlacing  boughs  of  the  hou  tree,  impervious  to  the  sun 
and  even  to  the  rain,  except  in  violent  storms.  Vines  are  trained  about 
the  sides — the  stephanotis  or  some  one  of  the  countless  fragrant  and 
blossoming  trailers  which  abound  in  the  islands.  There  are  also  curtains 
of  matting  that  may  be  drawn  to  exclude  the  sun  or  rain.  The  floor  is 
bare  for  coolness,  or  partially  covered  with  rugs,  and  the  lanai  is 
prettily  furnished  with  comfortable  chairs,  sofas,  and  tables  loaded  with 
flowers,  or  wonderful  ferns  in  pots. 

"The  lanai  is  the  favorite  reception-room,  and  he'-e  at  any  social 
function  the  musical  program  is  given,  and  cakes  and  ices  are  served; 
here  morning  callers  are  received,  or  gay  riding  parties,  the  ladies  in 
pretty  divided  skirts,  worn  for  convenience  in  riding  astride, —  the  uni 
versal  mode  adopted  by  Europeans  and  Americans,  as  well  as  by  the 
natives. 

"The  comfort  and  luxury  of  such  an  apartment,  especially  at  a  sea 
shore  villa,  can  hardly  be  imagined.  The  soft  breezes  swept  across  it, 
heavy  with  the  fragrance  of  jasmine  and  gardenia,  and  through  the 
swaying  boughs  of  palm  and  mimosa  there  are  glimpses  of  rugged 
mountains,  their  summits  veiled  in  clouds,  of  purple  sea  with  the  white 


Following  the  Equator  55 

surf  beating  eternally  against  the  reefs,— whiter  still  in  the  yellow  sun 
light  or  the  magical  moonlight  of  the  tropics." 

There:  rugs,  ices,  pictures,  lanais,  worldly  books, 
sinful  bric-a-brac  fetched  from  everywhere.  And 
the  ladies  riding  astride.  These  are  changes,  indeed. 
In  my  time  the  native  women  rode  astride,  but  the 
white  ones  lacked  the  courage  to  adopt  their  wise 
custom.  In  my  time  ice  was  seldom  seen  in  Hono 
lulu.  It  sometimes  came  in  sailing  vessels  from 
New  England  as  ballast;  and  then,  if  there  hap 
pened  to  be  a  man-of-war  in  port  and  balls  and  sup 
pers  raging  by  consequence,  the  ballast  was  worth 
six  hundred  dollars  a  ton,  as  is  evidenced  by  repu 
table  tradition.  But  the  ice  machine  has  traveled  all 
over  the  world,  now,  and  brought  ice  within  every 
body's  reach.  In  Lapland  and  Spitzbergen  no  one 
uses  native  ice  in  our  day,  except  the  bears  and  the 
walruses. 

The  bicycle  is  not  mentioned.  It  was  not  neces 
sary.  We  know  that  it  is  there,  without  inquiring. 
It  is  everywhere.  But  for  it,  people  could  never 
have  had  summer  homes  on  the  summit  of  Mont 
Blanc ;  before  its  day,  property  up  there  had  but  a 
nominal  value.  The  ladies  of  the  Hawaiian  capital 
learned  too  late  the  right  way  to  occupy  a  horse  — 
too  late  to  get  much  benefit  from  it.  The  riding- 
horse  is  retiring  from  business  everywhere  in  the 
world.  In  Honolulu  a  few  years  from  now  he  will 
be  only  a  tradition. 

We  all  know  about  Father  Damien,  the  French 


56  Following  the  Equator 

priest  who  voluntarily  forsook  the  world  and  went  to 
the  leper  island  of  Molokai  to  labor  among  its  popu 
lation  of  sorrowful  exiles  who  wait  there,  in  slow- 
consuming  misery,  for  death  to  come  and  release 
them  from  their  troubles,  and  we  know  that  the  thing 
which  he  knew  beforehand  would  happen,  did  hap 
pen:  that  he  became  a  leper  himself,  and  died  of 
that  horrible  disease.  There  was  still  another  case 
of  self-sacrifice,  it  appears.  I  asked  after  "Billy" 
Ragsdale,  interpreter  to  the  Parliament  in  my  time 
—  a  half -white.  He  was  a  brilliant  young  fellow, 
and  very  popular.  As  an  interpreter  he  would  have 
been  hard  to  match  anywhere.  He  used  to  stand  up 
in  the  Parliament  and  turn  the  English  speeches  into 
Hawaiian  and  the  Hawaiian  speeches  into  English 
with  a  readiness  and  a  volubility  that  were  astonishing. 
I  asked  after  him,  and  was  told  that  his  prosperous 
career  was  cut  short  in  a  sudden  and  unexpected 
way,  just  as  he  was  about  to  marry  a  beautiful  half- 
caste  girl.  He  discovered,  by  some  nearly  invisible 
sign  about  his  skin,  that  the  poison  of  leprosy  was  in 
him.  The  secret  was  his  own,  and  might  be  kept 
concealed  for  years ;  but  he  would  not  be  treacher 
ous  to  the  girl  that  loved  him ;  he  would  not  marry 
her  to  a  doom  like  his.  And  so  he  put  his  affairs  in 
order,  and  went  around  to  all  his  friends  and  bade 
them  good-bye,  and  sailed  in  the  leper  ship  to 
Molokai.  There  he  died  the  loathsome  and  linger 
ing  death  that  all  lepers  die. 

In  this   place  let  me  insert   a  paragraph  or  two 


Following  the  Equator  57 

from  "The  Paradise  of  the  Pacific"    (Rev.  H.  H. 
Gowen)  : 

"  Poor  lepers !  It  is  easy  for  those  who  have  no  relatives  or  friends 
among  them  to  enforce  the  decree  of  segregation  to  the  letter,  but  who 
can  write  of  the  terrible,  the  heart-breaking  scenes  which  that  enforce 
ment  has  brought  about? 

"A  man  upon  Hawaii  was  suddenly  taken  away  after  a  summary 
arrest,  leaving  behind  him  a  helpless  wife  about  to  give  birth  to  a  babe. 
The  devoted  wife  with  great  pain  and  risk  came  the  whole  journey  to 
Honolulu,  and  pleaded  until  the  authorities  were  unable  to  resist  her 
entreaty  that  she  might  go  and  live  like  a  leper  with  her  leper  husband. 

"A  woman  in  the  prime  of  life  and  activity  is  condemned  as  an 
incipient  leper,  suddenly  removed  from  her  home,  and  her  husband 
returns  to  find  his  two  helpless  babes  moaning  for  their  lost  mother. 

"  Imagine  it !  The  case  of  the  babies  is  hard,  but  its  bitterness  is  a 
trifle  —  less  than  a  trifle  —  less  than  nothing — compared  to  what  the 
mother  must  suffer;  and  suffer  minute  by  minute,  hour  by  hour,  day  by 
day,  month  by  month,  year  by  year,  without  respite,  relief,  or  any 
abatement  of  her  pain  till  she  dies. 

"  One  woman,  Luka  Kaaukau,  has  been  living  with  her  leper  hus 
band  in  the  settlement  for  twelve  years.  The  man  has  scarcely  a  joint 
left,  his  limbs  are  only  distorted  ulcerated  stumps,  for  four  years  his  wife 
has  put  every  particle  of  food  into  his  mouth.  He  wanted  his  wife  to 
abandon  his  wretched  carcass  long  ago,  as  she  herself  was  sound  and 
well,  but  Luka  said  that  she  was  content  to  remain  and  wait  on  the  man 
she  loved  till  the  spirit  should  be  freed  from  its  burden. 

"  I  myself  have  known  hard  cases  enough: — of  a  girl,  apparently  in 
full  health,  decorating  the  church  with  me  at  Easter,  who  before  Christ 
mas  is  taken  away  as  a  confirmed  leper;  of  a  mother  hiding  her  child  in 
the  mountains  for  years  so  that  not  even  her  dearest  friends  knew  that 
she  had  a  child  alive,  that  he  might  not  be  taken  away;  of  a  respectable 
white  man  taken  away  from  his  wife  and  family,  and  compelled  to 
become  a  dweller  in  the  Leper  Settlement,  where  he  is  counted  dead, 
even  by  the  insurance  companies ." 

And  one  great  pity  of  it  all  is,  that  these  poor 
sufferers  are  innocent.  The  leprosy  does  not  come 
of  sins  which  they  committed,  but  of  sins  committed 


58  Following  the  Equator 

by  their  ancestors,  who   escaped  the  curse  of  lep 
rosy  ! 

Mr.  Gowan  has  made  record  of  a  certain  very 
striking  circumstance.  Would  you  expect  to  find  in 
that  awful  Leper  Settlement  a  custom  worthy  to  be 
transplanted  to  your  own  country?  They  have  one 
such,  and  it  is  inexpressibly  touching  and  beautiful. 
When  death  sets  open  the  prison  door  of  life  there, 
the  band  salutes  the  freed  soul  with  a  burst  of  glad 
music ! 


CHAPTER    IV. 

A  dozen  direcl  censures  are  easier  to  bear  than  one  morganatic  compliment 

—Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

SAILED  from  Honolulu.     From  diary: 
Sept.  2.  Flocks  of  flying  fish  —  slim,  shapely, 
graceful,    and    intensely   white.     With    the   sun    on 
them  they  look  like  a  flight  of  silver  fruit-knives. 
They  are  able  to  fly  a  hundred  yards. 

Sept.  3.  In  9°  50'  north  latitude,  at  breakfast. 
Approaching  the  equator  on  a  long  slant.  Those 
of  us  who  have  never  seen  the  equator  are  a  good 
deal  excited.  I  think  I  would  rather  see  it  than  any 
other  thing  in  the  world.  We  entered  the  "dol 
drums"  last  night  —  variable  winds,  bursts  of  rain, 
intervals  of  calm,  with  chopping  seas  and  a  wobbly 
and  drunken  motion  to  the  ship  —  a  condition  of 
things  findable  in  other  regions  sometimes,  but  present 
in  the  doldrums  always.  The  globe-girdling  belt 
called  the  doldrums  is  20  degrees  wide,  and  the 
thread  called  the  equator  lies  along  the  middle  of  it. 

Sept.  4..  Total  eclipse  of  the  moon  last  night. 
At  7.30  it  began  to  go  off.  At  total  —  or  about 
that  —  it  was  like  a  rich  rosy  cloud  with  a  tumbled 

(59) 


60  Following  the  Equator 

surface  framed  in  the  circle  and  projecting  from  it  — • 
a  bulge  of  strawberry-ice,  so  to  speak.  At  half^ 
eclipse  the  moon  was  like  a  gilded  acorn  in  its  cup. 

Sept.  5.  Closing  in  on  the  equator  this  noon.  A 
sailor  explained  to  a  young  girl  that  the  ship's  speed 
is  poor  because  we  are  climbing  up  the  bulge  toward 
the  center  of  the  globe;  but  that  when  we  should 
once  get  over,  at  the  equator,  and  start  down-hill, 
we  should  fly.  When  she  asked  him  the  other  day 
what  the  foreyard  was,  he  said  it  was  the  front 
yard,  the  open  area  in  the  front  end  of  the  ship. 
That  man  has  a  good  deal  of  learning  stored  up, 
and  the  girl  is  likely  to  get  it  all. 

Afternoon.  Crossed  the  equator.  In  the  distance 
it  looked  like  a  blue  ribbon  stretched  across  the 
ocean.  Several  passengers  kodak' d  it.  We  had  no 
fool  ceremonies,  no  fantastics,  no  horse-play.  All 
that  sort  of  thing  has  gone  out.  In  old  times  a 
sailor,  dressed  as  Neptune,  used  to  come  in  over  the 
bows,  with  his  suite,  and  lather  up  and  shave  every 
body  who  was  crossing  the  equator  for  the  first 
time,  and  then  cleanse  these  unfortunates  by  swing 
ing  them  from  the  yardarm  and  ducking  them  three 
times  in  the  sea.  This  was  considered  funny.  No 
body  knows  why.  No,  that  is  not  true.  We  do 
know  why.  Such  a  thing  could  never  be  funny  on 
land ;  no  part  of  the  old-time  grotesque  perform 
ances  gotten  up  on  shipboard  to  celebrate  the  pas 
sage  of  the  line  could  ever  be  funny  on  shore  — 
they  would  seem  dreary  and  witless  to  shore  people. 


Following  the  Equator  61 

But  the  shore  people  would  change  their  minds 
about  it  at  sea,  on  a  long  voyage.  On  such  a  voy 
age,  with  its  eternal  monotonies,  people's  intellects 
deteriorate ;  the  owners  of  the  intellects  soon  reach  a 
point  where  they  almost  seem  to  prefer  childish 
things  to  things  of  a  maturer  degree.  One  is  often 
surprised  at  the  juvenilities  which  grown  people 
indulge  in  at  sea,  and  the  interest  they  take  in  them, 
and  the  consuming  enjoyment  they  get  out  of  them. 
This  is  on  long  voyages  only.  The  mind  gradually 
becomes  inert,  dull,  blunted;  it  loses  its  accustomed 
interest  in  intellectual  things;  nothing  but  horse 
play  can  rouse  it,  nothing  but  wild  and  foolish 
grotesqueries  can  entertain  it.  On  short  voyages  it 
makes  no  such  exposure  of  itself;  it  hasn't  time  to 
slump  down  to  this  sorrowful  level. 

The  short-voyage  passenger  gets  his  chief  physical 
exercise  out  of  "horse-billiards" — shovel-board. 
It  is  a  good  game.  We  play  it  in  this  ship.  A 
quartermaster  chalks  off  a  diagram  like  this  —  on 
the  deck.  (See  next  page.) 

The  player  uses  a  cue  that  is  like  a  broom-handle 
with  a  quarter-moon  of  wood  fastened  to  the  end  of 
it.  With  this  he  shoves  wooden  disks  the  size  of  a 
saucer  —  he  gives  the  disk  a  vigorous  shove  and 
sends  it  fifteen  or  twenty  feet  along  the  deck  and 
lands  it  in  one  of  the  squares  if  he  can.  If  it  stays 
there  till  the  inning  is  played  out,  it  will  count  as 
many  points  in  the  game  as  the  figure  in  the  square 
it  has  stopped  in  represents.  The  adversary  plays 


62 


Following  the  Equator 


to  knock  that  disk  out  and  leave  his  own  in  its 
place  —  particularly  if  it  rests  upon  the  9  or  10  or 
some  other  of  the  high  numbers ;  but  if  it  rests  in 

"HORSE   BILLIARDS." 


10 


8 


to  off 


DIAGRAM. 


the  "  lo-off  "  he  backs  it  up  —  lands  his  disk  behind 
it  a  foot  or  two,  to  make  it  difficult  for  its  owner  to 
knock  it  out  of  that  damaging  place  and  improve 
his  record.  When  the  inning  is  played  out  it  may 


Following  the  Equator  63 

be  found  that  each  adversary  has  placed  his  four 
disks  where  they  count;  it  may  be  found  that  some 
of  them  are  touching  chalk  lines  and  not  counting; 
and  very  often  it  will  be  found  that  there  has  been  a 
general  wreckage,  and  that  riot  a  disk  has  been  left 
within  the  diagram.  Anyway,  the  result  is  recorded, 
whatever  it  is,  and  the  game  goes  on.  The  game 
is  100  points,  and  it  takes  from  twenty  minutes  to 
forty  to  play  it,  according  to  luck  and  the  condition 
of  the  sea.  It  is  an  exciting  game,  and  the  crowd 
of  spectators  furnish  abundance  of  applause  for 
fortunate  shots  and  plenty  of  laughter  for  the  other 
kind.  It  is  a  game  of  skill,  but  at  the  same  time 
the  uneasy  motion  of  the  ship  is  constantly  inter 
fering  with  skill;  this  makes  it  a  chancy  game,  and 
the  element  of  luck  comes  largely  in. 

We  had  a  couple  of  grand  tournaments,  to 
determine  who  should  be  ' '  Champion  of  the  Pa 
cific  "  :  they  included  among  the  participants  nearly 
all  the  passengers,  of  both  sexes,  and  the  officers 
of  the  ship,  and  they  afforded  many  days  of 
stupendous  interest  and  excitement,  and  murderous 
exercise  —  for  horse-billiards  is  a  physically  vio 
lent  game. 

The  figures  in  the  following  record  of  some  of 
the  closing  games  in  the  first  tournament  will  show, 
better  than  any  description,  how  very  chancy  the 
game  is.  The  losers  here  represented  had  all  been 
winners  in  the  previous  games  of  the  series,  some  of 
them  by  fine  majorities : 


64  Following  the  Equator 

Chase,  102  Mrs.  D.,  57  Mortimer,  105  The  Surgeon,  92 

Miss  C.,  105  Mrs.  T.,  9  Clemens,  101  Taylor,             92 

Taylor,  109  Davies,  95  Miss  C.,  108  Mortimer,        55 

Thomas,  102  Roper,  76  Clemens,  in  Miss  C.,          89 

Coomber,  106  Chase,  98 

And  so  on ;  until  but  three  couples  of  winners 
were  left.  Then  I  beat  my  man,  young  Smith  beat 
his  man,  and  Thomas  beat  his.  This  reduced  the 
combatants  to  three.  Smith  and  I  took  the  deck, 
and  I  led  off.  At  the  close  of  the  first  inning  I  was 
10  worse  than  nothing  and  Smith  had  scored  7. 
The  luck  continued  against  me.  When  I  was  57, 
Smith  was  97  —  within  3  of  out.  The  luck  changed 
then.  He  picked  up  a  ro-off  or  so,  and  couldn't 
recover.  I  beat  him. 

The  next  game  would  end  tournament  No.  I. 

Mr.  Thomas  and  I  were  the  contestants.  He 
won  the  lead  and  went  to  the  bat  —  so  to  speak. 
And  there  he  stood,  with  the  crotch  of  his  cue  rest 
ing  against  his  disk  while  the  ship  rose  slowly  up, 
sank  slowly  down,  rose  again,  sank  again.  She 
never  seemed  to  rise  to  suit  him  exactly.  She 
started  up  once  more;  and  when  she  was  nearly 
ready  for  the  turn,  he  let  drive  and  landed  his  disk 
just  within  the  left-hand  end  of  the  10.  (Applause.) 
The  umpire  proclaimed  "a  good  10,"  and  the 
gamekeeper  set  it  down.  I  played:  my  disk  grazed 
the  edge  of  Mr.  Thomas's  disk,  and  went  out  of  the 
diagram.  (No  applause.) 

Mr.  Thomas  played  again  —  and  landed  his  second 
disk  alongside  of  the  first,  and  almost  touching  its 
right-hand  side.  "Good  10."  (Great  applause.) 


Following  the  Equator  65 

I  played,  and  missed  both  of  them.  (No  ap 
plause.) 

Mr.  Thomas  delivered  his  third  shot  and  landed 
his  disk  just  at  the  right  of  the  other  two.  "  Good 
10."  (Immense  applause.) 

There  they  lay,  side  by  side,  the  three  in  a  row. 
It  did  not  seem  possible  that  anybody  could  miss 
them.  Still  I  did  it.  (Immense  silence.) 

Mr.  Thomas  played  his  last  disk.  It  seems  in 
credible,  but  he  actually  landed  that  disk  alongside 
of  the  others,  and  just  to  the  right  of  them  —  a 
straight  solid  row  of  4  disks.  (Tumultuous  and 
long-continued  applause.) 

Then  I  played  my  last  disk.  Again  it  did  not 
seem  possible  that  anybody  could  miss  that  row  —  a 
row  which  would  have  been  14  inches  long  if  the 
disks  had  been  clamped  together;  whereas,  with  the 
spaces  separating  them  they  made  a  longer  row  than 
that.  But  I  did  it.  It  may  be  that  I  was  getting 
nervous. 

I  think  it  unlikely  that  that  innings  has  ever  had 
its  parallel  in  the  history  of  horse-billiards.  To 
place  the  four  disks  side  by  side  in  the  10  was  an 
extraordinary  feat;  indeed,  it  was  a  kind  of  miracle. 
To  miss  them  was  another  miracle.  It  will  take  a 
century  to  produce  another  man  who  can  place  the 
four  disks  in  the  10;  and  longer  than  that  to  find  a 
man  who  can't  knock  them  out.  I  was  ashamed  of 
my  performance  at  the  time,  but  now  that  I  reflect 
upon  it  I  see  that  it  was  rather  fine  and  difficult. 


66  Following  the  Equator 

Mr.  Thomas  kept  his  luck,  and  won  the  game, 
and  later  the  championship. 

In  a  minor  tournament  I  won  the  prize,  which 
was  a  Waterbury  watch.  I  put  it  in  my  trunk.  In 
Pretoria,  South  Africa,  nine  months  afterward,  my 
proper  watch  broke  down  and  I  took  the  Waterbury 
out,  wound  it,  set  it  by  the  great  clock  on  the 
Parliament  House  (8.05),  then  went  back  to  my 
room  and  went  to  bed,  tired  from  a  long  railway 
journey.  The  parliamentary  clock  had  a  peculiarity 
which  I  was  not  aware  of  at  the  time  —  a  peculiarity 
which  exists  in  no  other  clock,  and  would  not  exist 
in  that  one  if  it  had  been  made  by  a  sane  person ; 
on  the  half-hour  it  strikes  the  succeeding  houry  then 
strikes  the  hour  again  at  the  proper  time.  I  lay 
reading  and  smoking  awhile;  then,  when  I  could 
hold  my  eyes  open  no  longer  and  was  about  to  put 
out  the  light,  the  great  clock  began  to  boom,  and  I 
counted  —  ten.  I  reached  for  the  Waterbury  to  see 
how  it  was  getting  along.  It  was  marking  9.30.  It 
seemed  rather  poor  speed  for  a  three-dollar  watch, 
but  I  supposed  that  the  climate  was  affecting  it.  I 
shoved  it  half  an  hour  ahead,  and  took  to  my  book 
and  waited  to  see  what  would  happen.  At  10  the 
great  clock  struck  ten  again.  I  looked  —  the 
Waterbury  was  marking  half-past  10.  This  was 
too  much  speed  for  the  money,  and  it  troubled  me. 
I  pushed  the  hands  back  a  half  hour,  and  waited 
once  more  ;  I  had  to,  for  I  was  vexed  and  restless 
now,  and  my  sleepiness  was  gone.  By  and  by  the 


Following  the  Equator  67 

great  clock  struck  1 1 .  The  Waterbury  was  marking 
10.30.  I  pushed  it  ahead  half  an  hour,  with  some 
show  of  temper.  By  and  by  the  great  clock  struck 
II  again.  The  Waterbury  showed  up  11.30,  now, 
and  I  beat  her  brains  out  against  the  bedstead.  I 
was  sorry  next  day,  when  I  found  out. 

To  return  to  the  ship. 

The  average  human  being  is  a  perverse  creature ; 
and  when  he  isn't  that,  he  is  a  practical  joker. 
The  result  to  the  other  person  concerned  is  about 
the  same :  that  is,  he  is  made  to  suffer.  The  wash 
ing  down  of  the  decks  begins  at  a  very  early  hour  in 
all  ships;  in  but  few  ships  are  any  measures  taken 
to  protect  the  passengers,  either  by  waking  or  warn 
ing  them,  or  by  sending  a  steward  to  close  their 
ports.  And  so  the  deck-washers  have  their  oppor 
tunity,  and  they  use  it.  They  send  a  bucket  of 
water  slashing  along  the  side  of  the  ship  and  into 
the  ports,  drenching  the  passenger's  clothes,  and 
often  the  passenger  himself.  This  good  old  custom 
prevailed  in  this  ship,  and  under  unusually  favorable 
circumstances,  for  in  the  blazing  tropical  regions  a 
removable  zinc  thing  like  a  sugar-shovel  projects 
from  the  port  to  catch  the  wind  and  bring  it  in ; 
this  thing  catches  the  wash-water  and  brings  it  in, 
too  —  and  in  flooding  abundance.  Mrs.  I.,  an  in 
valid,  had  to  sleep  on  the  locker-sofa  under  her 
port,  and  every  time  she  overslept  and  thus  failed 
to  take  care  of  herself,  the  deck-washers  drowned 
her  out. 

E» 


68  Following  the  Equator 

And  the  painters,  what  a  good  time  they  had ! 
This  ship  would  be  going  into  dock  for  a  month  in 
Sydney  for  repairs;  but  no  matter,  painting  was 
going  on  all  the  time  somewhere  or  other.  The 
ladies'  dresses  were  constantly  getting  ruined,  never 
theless  protests  and  supplications  went  for  nothing. 
Sometimes  a  lady,  taking  an  afternoon  nap  on  deck 
near  a  ventilator  or  some  other  thing  that  didn't 
need  painting,  would  wake  up  by  and  by  and  find 
that  the  humorous  painter  had  been  noiselessly 
daubing  that  thing  and  had  splattered  her  white 
gown  all  over  with  little  greasy  yellow  spots. 

The  blame  for  this  untimely  painting  did  not  He 
with  the  ship's  officers,  but  with  custom.  As  far 
back  as  Noah's  time  it  became  law  that  ships  must 
be  constantly  painted  and  fussed  at  when  at  sea; 
custom  grew  out  of  the  law,  and  at  sea  custom 
knows  no  death ;  this  custom  will  continue  until  the 
sea  goes  dry. 

Sept.  8. —  Sunday.  We  are  moving  so  nearly 
south  that  we  cross  only  about  two  meridians  of 
longitude  a  day.  This  morning  we  were  in  longi 
tude  178  west  from  Greenwich,  and  57  degrees  west 
from  San  Francisco.  To-morrow  we  shall  be  close 
to  the  center  of  the  globe  —  the  i8oth  degree  of 
west  longitude  and  iSoth  degree  of  east  longitude. 

And  then  we  must  drop  out  a  day  —  lose  a  day 
out  of  our  lives,  a  day  never  to  be  found  again. 
We  shall  all  die  one  day  earlier  than  from  the  be 
ginning  of  time  we  were  foreordained  to  die.  We 


Following  the  Equator  69 

shall  be  a  day  behindhand  all  through  eternity. 
We  shall  always  be  saying  to  the  other  angels, 
•"  Fine  day  to-day,"  and  they  will  be  always  retort 
ing,  "  But  it  isn't  to-day,  it's  to-morrow."  We 
shall  be  in  a  state  of  confusion  all  the  time  and 
shall  never  know  what  true  happiness  is. 

Next  Day.  Sure  enough,  it  has  happened. 
Yesterday  it  was  September  8,  Sunday;  to-day, 
per  the  bulletin-board  at  the  head  of  the  companion- 
way,  it  is  September  10,  Tuesday.  There  is  some 
thing  uncanny  about  it.  And  uncomfortable.  In 
fact,  nearly  unthinkable,  and  wholly  unrealizable, 
when  one  comes  to  consider  it.  While  we  were 
crossing  the  iSoth  meridian  it  was  Sunday  in  the 
stern  of  the  ship  where  my  family  were,  and  Tuesday 
in  the  bow  where  I  was.  They  were  there  eating 
the  half  of  a  fresh  apple  on  the  8th,  and  I  was  at 
the  same  time  eating  the  other  half  of  it  on  the 
roth — and  I  could  notice  how  stale  it  was,  already. 
The  family  were  the  same  age  that  they  were  when 
I  had  left  them  five  minutes  before,  but  I  was  a  day 
older  now  than  I  was  then.  The  day  they  were 
living  in  stretched  behind  them  half  way  round  the 
globe,  across  the  Pacific  Ocean  and  America  and 
Europe ;  the  day  I  was  living  in  stretched  in  front 
of  me  around  the  other  half  to  meet  it.  They  were 
stupendous  days  for  bulk  and  stretch ;  apparently 
much  larger  days  than  we  had  ever  been  in  before. 
All  previous  days  had  been  but  shrunk-up  little 
things  by  comparison.  The  difference  in  tempera- 


70  Following  the  Equator 

ture  between  the  two  days  was  very  marked,  their 
day  being  hotter  than  mine  because  it  was  closer  to 
the  equator. 

Along  about  the  moment  that  we  were  crossing 
the  Great  Meridian  a  child  was  born  in  the  steerage, 
and  now  there  is  no  way  to  tell  which  day  it  was 
born  on.  The  nurse  thinks  it  was  Sunday,  the 
surgeon  thinks  it  was  Tuesday.  The  child  will 
never  know  its  own  birthday.  It  will  always  be 
choosing  first  one  and  then  the  other,  and  will  never 
be  able  to  make  up  its  mind  permanently.  This 
will  breed  vacillation  and  uncertainty  in  its  opinions 
about  religion,  and  politics,  and  business,  and  sweet 
hearts,  and  everything,  and  will  undermine  its  prin 
ciples,  and  rot  them  away,  and  make  the  poor  thing 
characterless,  and  its  success  in  life  impossible. 
Every  one  in  the  ship  says  so.  And  this  is  not  all 
—  in  fact,  not  the  worst.  For  there  is  an  enormously 
rich  brewer  in  the  ship  who  said  as  much  as  ten 
days  ago,  that  if  the  child  was  born  on  his  birthday 
he  would  give  it  ten  thousand  dollars  to  start  its  little 
life  with.  His  birthday  was  Monday,  the  9th  of 
September. 

If  the  ships  all  moved  in  the  one  direction  — 
westward,  I  mean  —  the  world  would  suffer  a  pro 
digious  loss  in  the  matter  of  valuable  time,  through 
the  dumping  overboard  on  the  Great  Meridian  of 
such  multitudes  of  days  by  ships'  crews  and  passen 
gers.  But,  fortunately,  the  ships  do  not  all  sail  west, 
half  of  them  sail  east.  So  there  is  no  real  loss. 


Following  the  Equator  71 

These  latter  pick  up  all  the  discarded  days  and  add 
them  to  the  world's  stock  again;  and  about  as  good 
as  new,  too ;  for  of  course  the  salt  water  preserves 
them- 


CHAPTER  V. 

Noise  proves  nothing.    Often  a  hen  who  has  merely  laid  an  egg  cackles  as 
if  she  had  laid  an  asteroid.  — Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

WEDNESDAY,  Sept.  n.  In  this  world  we  often 
make  mistakes  of  judgment.  We  do  not,  as 
a  rule,  get  out  of  them  sound  and  whole,  but  some 
times  we  do.  At  dinner  yesterday  evening  —  pres 
ent,  a  mixture  of  Scotch,  English,  American, 
Canadian,  and  Australasian  folk  —  a  discussion 
broke  out  about  the  pronunciation  of  certain  Scot 
tish  words.  This  was  private  ground,  and  the  non- 
Scotch  nationalities,  with  one  exception,  discreetly 
kept  still.  But  I  am  not  discreet,  and  I  took  a 
hand.  I  didn't  know  anything  about  the  subject, 
but  I  took  a  hand  just  to  have  something  to  do. 
At  that  moment  the  word  in  dispute  was  the  word 
three.  One  Scotchman  was  claiming  that  the  peas 
antry  of  Scotland  pronounced  it  three  *  his  adver 
saries  claimed  that  they  didn't  —  that  they  pro 
nounced  it  thraw.  The  solitary  Scot  was  having  a 
sultry  time  of  it,  so  I  thought  I  would  enrich  him 
with  my  help.  In  my  position  I  was  necessarily 
quite  impartial,  and  was  equally  as  well  and  as  ill 
equipped  to  fight  on  the  one  side  as  on  the  other. 

(72) 


Following  the  Equator  73 

So  I  spoke  up  and  said  the  peasantry  pronounced 
the  word  three,  not  thraw.  It  was  an  error  of  judg 
ment.  There  was  a  moment  of  astonished  and 
ominous  silence,  then  weather  ensued.  The  storm 
rose  and  spread  in  a  surprising  way,  and  I  was 
snowed  under  in  a  very  few  minutes.  It  was  a  bad 
defeat  for  me  —  a  kind  of  Waterloo.  It  promised 
to  remain  so,  and  I  wished  I  had  had  better  sense 
than  to  enter  upon  such  a  forlorn  enterprise.  But 
just  then  I  had  a  saving  thought  —  at  least  a  thought 
that  offered  a  chance.  While  the  storm  was  still 
raging,  I  made  up  a  Scotch  couplet,  and  then  spoke 
up  and  said : 

"Very  well,  don't  say  any  more.  I  confess 
defeat.  I  thought  I  knew,  but  I  see  my  mistake. 
I  was  deceived  by  one  of  your  Scotch  poets." 

1  *  A  Scotch  poet !     Oh,  come  !     Name  him." 

"  Robert  Burns." 

It  is  wonderful  the  power  of  that  name.  These 
men  looked  doubtful  —  but  paralyzed,  all  the  same. 
They  were  quite  silent  for  a  moment ;  then  one  of 
them  said  —  with  the  reverence  in  his  voice  which  is 
always  present  in  a  Scotchman's  tone  when  he  utters 
the  name: 

"Does  Robbie  Burns  say  —  what  does  he  say?" 

4  *  This  is  what  he  says : 

"  '  There  were  nae  bairns  but  only  three  — 
Ane  at  the  breast,  twa  at  the  knee.'  " 

It  ended  the  discussion.  There  was  no  man  there 
profane  enough,  disloyal  enough,  to  say  any  word 


74  Following  the  Equator 

against  a  thing  which  Robert  Burns  had  settled.  1 
shall  always  honor  that  great  name  for  the  salvation 
it  brought  me  in  this  time  of  my  sore  need. 

It  is  my  belief  that  nearly  any  invented  quotation, 
played  with  confidence,  stands  a  good  chance  to 
deceive.  There  are  people  who  think  that  honesty 
is  always  the  best  policy.  This  is  a  superstition ; 
there  are  times  when  the  appearance  of  it  is  worth 
six  of  it. 

We  are  moving  steadily  southward  —  getting 
further  and  further  down  under  the  projecting 
paunch  of  the  globe.  Yesterday  evening  we  saw 
the  Big  Dipper  and  the  north  star  sink  below  the 
horizon  and  disappear  from  our  world.  No,  not 
"we,"  but  they.  They  saw  it  —  somebody  saw  it 
• —  and  told  me  about  it.  But  it  is  no  matter,  I  was 
not  caring  for  those  things.  I  am  tired  of  them, 
anyway.  I  think  they  are  well  enough,  but  one 
doesn't  want  them  always  hanging  around.  My 
interest  was  all  in  the  Southern  Cross.  I  had  never 
seen  that.  I  had  heard  about  it  all  my  life,  and  it 
was  but  natural  that  I  should  be  burning  to  see  it. 
No  other  constellation  makes  so  much  talk.  I  had 
nothing  against  the  Big  Dipper  —  and  naturally 
couldn't  have  anything  against  it,  since  it  is  a  citizen 
of  our  own  sky,  and  the  property  of  the  United 
States  —  but  I  did  want  it  to  move  out  of  the  way 
and  give  this  foreigner  a  chance.  Judging  by  the 
size  of  the  talk  which  the  Southern  Cross  had  made, 
I  supposed  it  would  need  a  sky  all  to  itself. 


Following  the  Equator  75 

But  that  was  a  mistake.  We  saw  the  Cross  to 
night,  and  it  is  not  large.  Not  large,  and  not 
strikingly  bright.  But  it  was  low  down  toward  the 
horizon,  and  it  may  improve  when  it  gets  up  higher 
in  the  sky.  It  is  ingeniously  named,  for  it  looks 
just  as  a  cross  would  look  if  it  looked  like  something 
else.  But  that  description  does  not  describe;  it  is 
too  vague,  too  general,  too  indefinite.  It  does  after 
a  fashion  suggest  a  cross  —  a  cross  that  is  out  of 
repair  —  or  out  of  drawing;  not  correctly  shaped. 
It  is  long,  with  a  short  cross-bar,  and  the  cross-bar 
is  canted  out  of  the  straight  line. 

It  consists  of  four  large  stars  and  one  little  one. 
The  little  one  is  out  of  line 
and  further  damages  the 
shape.  It  should  have  been 
placed  at  the  intersection  of 
the  stem  and  the  cross-bar. 

If  you  do  not  draw  an  imaginary  line  from  star  to 
star  it  does  not  suggest  a  cross  —  nor  anything  in 
particular. 

One  must  ignore  the  little  star,  and  leave  it  out  of 
the  combination  —  it  confuses  everything.  If  you 
leave  it  out,  then  you  can  make  out  of  the  four  stars 
a  sort  of  cross  —  out  of  true;  or  a  sort  of  kite  — 
out  of  true;  or  a  sort  of  coffin  —  out  of  true. 

Constellations  have  always  been  troublesome  things 
to  name.  If  you  give  one  of  them  a  fanciful  name, 
it  will  always  refuse  to  live  up  to  it ;  it  will  always 
persist  in  not  resembling  the  thing  it  has  been  named 


76  Following  the  Equator 

for.  Ultimately,  to  satisfy  the  public,  the  fanci 
ful  name  has  to  be  discarded  for  a  common-sense 
one,  a  manifestly  descriptive  one.  The  Great  Bear 
remained  the  Great  Bear  —  and  unrecognizable  as 
such  —  for  thousands  of  years;  and  people  com 
plained  about  it  all  the  time,  and  quite  properly ; 
but  as  soon  as  it  became  the  property  of  the  United 
States,  Congress  changed  it  to  the  Big  Dipper,  and 
now  everybody  is  satisfied,  and  there  is  no  more 
talk  about  riots.  I  would  not  change  the  Southern 
Cross  to  the  Southern  Coffin,  I  would  change  it  to 
the  Southern  Kite;  for  up  there  in  the  general 
emptiness  is  the  proper  home  of  a  kite,  but  not  for 
coffins  and  crosses  and  dippers.  In  a  little  while, 
now  —  I  cannot  tell  exactly  how  long  it  will  be  — 
the  globe  will  belong  to  the  English-speaking  race ; 
and  of  course  the  skies  also.  Then  the  constellations 
will  be  re-organized,  and  polished  up,  and  re-named 
— the  most  of  them  "Victoria,"  I  reckon,  but  this 
one  will  sail  thereafter  as  the  Southern  Kite,  or  go 
out  of  business.  Several  towns  and  things,  here 
and  there,  have  been  named  for  Her  Majesty  already. 
In  these  past  few  days  we  are  plowing  through  a 
mighty  Milky  Way  of  islands.  They  are  so  thick  on 
the  map  that  one  would  hardly  expect  to  find  room 
between  them  for  a  canoe ;  yet  we  seldom  glimpse 
one.  Once  we  saw  the  dim  bulk  of  a  couple  of  them, 
far  away,  spectral  and  dreamy  things;  members 
of  the  Home  —  Alofa  and  Fortuna.  On  the  larger 
one  are  two  rival  native  kings  —  and  they  have  a 


Following  the  Equator  77 

time  together.  They  are  Catholics;  so  are  their  peo 
ple.  The  missionaries  there  are  French  priests. 

From  the  multitudinous  islands  in  these  regions 
the  "  recruits  "  for  the  Queensland  plantations  were 
formerly  drawn;  are  still  drawn  from  them,  I  be 
lieve.  Vessels  fitted  up  like  old-time  slavers  came 
here  and  carried  off  the  natives  to  serve  as  laborers 
in  the  great  Australian  province.  In  the  beginning 
it  was  plain,  simple  man-stealing,  as  per  testimony 
of  the  missionaries.  This  has  been  denied,  but  not 
disproven.  Afterward  it  was  forbidden  by  law  to 
"  recruit "  a  native  without  his  consent,  and  govern 
mental  agents  were  sent  in  all  recruiting  vessels  to 
see  that  the  law  was  obeyed  —  which  they  did,  ac 
cording  to  the  recruiting  people;  and  which  they 
sometimes  didn't,  according  to  the  missionaries.  A 
man  could  be  lawfully  recruited  for  a  three-years 
term  of  service ;  he  could  volunteer  for  another 
term  if  he  so  chose ;  when  his  time  was  up  he  could 
return  to  his  island.  And  would  also  have  the 
means  to  do  it;  for  the  government  required  the 
employer  to  put  money  in  its  hands  for  this  purpose 
before  the  recruit  was  delivered  to  him. 

Captain  Wawn  was  a  recruiting  shipmaster  during 
many  years.  From  his  pleasant  book  one  gets  the 
idea  that  the  recruiting  business  was  quite  popular 
with  the  islanders,  as  a  rule.  And  yet  that  did  not 
make  the  business  wholly  dull  and  uninteresting; 
for  one  finds  rather  frequent  little  breaks  in  the 
monotony  of  it  —  like  this,  for  instance : 


78  Following  the  Equator 

"The  afternoon  of  our  arrival  at  Leper  Island  the  schooner  was 
lying  almost  becalmed  under  the  lee  of  the  lofty  central  portion  of  the 
island,  about  three-quarters  of  a  mile  from  the  shore.  The  boats  were 
in  sight  at  some  distance.  The  recruiter-boat  had  run  into  a  small  nook 
on  the  rocky  coast,  under  a  high  bank,  above  which  stood  a  solitary  hut 
backed  by  dense  forest.  The  government  agent  and  mate  in  the  second 
boat  lay  about  400  yards  to  the  westward. 

"  Suddenly  we  heard  the  sound  of  firing,  followed  by  yells  from  the 
natives  on  shore,  and  then  we  saw  the  recruiter-boat  push  out  with  a 
seemingly  diminished  crew.  The  mate's  boat  pulled  quickly  up,  took 
her  in  tow,  and  presently  brought  her  alongside,  all  her  own  crew  being 
more  or  less  hurt.  It  seems  the  natives  had  called  them  into  the  place 
on  pretense  of  friendship.  A  crowd  gathered  about  the  stern  of  the 
boat,  and  several  fellows  even  got  into  her.  All  of  a  sudden  our  men 
were  attacked  with  clubs  and  tomahawks.  The  recruiter  escaped  the 
first  blows  aimed  at  him,  making  play  with  his  fists  until  he  had  an 
opportunity  to  draw  his  revolver.  '  Tom  Sayers,'  a  Mare  man,  received 
a  tomahawk  blow  on  the  head  which  laid  the  scalp  open  but  did  not 
penetrate  his  skull,  fortunately.  '  Bobby  Towns,'  another  Mare  boat 
man,  had  both  his  thumbs  cut  in  warding  off  blows,  one  of  them  being 
so  nearly  severed  from  the  hand  that  the  doctors  had  to  finish  the 
operation.  Lihu,  a  Lifu  boy,  the  recruiter's  special  attendant,  was  cut 
and  pricked  in  various  places,  but  nowhere  seriously.  Jack,  an  unlucky 
Tanna  recruit,  who  had  been  engaged  to  act  as  boatman,  received  an 
arrow  through  his  forearm,  the  head  of  which  —  a  piece  of  bone  seven 
or  eight  inches  long  —  was  still  in  the  limb,  protruding  from  both  sides, 
when  the  boats  returned.  The  recruiter  himself  would  have  got  off 
scot-free  had  not  an  arrow  pinned  one  of  his  fingers  to  the  loom  of  the 
steering-oar  just  as  they  were  getting  off.  The  fight  had  been  short  but 
sharp.  The  enemy  lost  two  men,  both  shot  dead." 

The  truth  is,  Captain  Wawn  furnishes  such  a 
crowd  of  instances  of  fatal  encounters  between 
natives  and  French  and  English  recruiting-crews  (for 
the  French  are  in  the  business  for  the  plantations  of 
New  Caledonia) ,  that  one  is  almost  persuaded  that 
recruiting  is  not  thoroughly  popular  among  the 
islanders;  else  why  this  bristling  string  of  attacks 


Following  the  Equator  79 

and  blood-curdling  slaughter?  The  captain  lays  it 
all  to  "Exeter  Hall  influence."  But  for  the  med 
dling  philanthropists,  the  native  fathers  and  mothers 
would  be  fond  of  seeing  their  children  carted  into 
exile  and  now  and  then  the  grave,  instead  of  weep 
ing  about  it  and  trying  to  kill  the  kind  recruiters. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

He  was  as  shy  as  a  newspaper  is  when  referring  to  its  own  merits. 

— Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

CAPTAIN  Wawn  is  crystal-clear  on  one  point. 
He  does  not  approve  of  missionaries.  They 
obstruct  his  business.  They  make  "Recruiting," 
as  he  calls  it  ("Slave-Catching,"  as  they  call  it  in 
their  frank  way)  a  trouble  when  it  ought  to  be  just 
a  picnic  and  a  pleasure  excursion.  The  missionaries 
have  their  opinion  about  the  manner  in  which  the 
Labor  Traffic  is  conducted,  and  about  the  recruiter's 
evasions  of  the  law  of  the  Traffic,  and  about  the 
Traffic  itself :  and  it  is  distinctly  uncomplimentary  to 
the  Traffic  and  to  everything  connected  with  it,  in 
cluding  the  law  for  its  regulation.  Captain  Wawn's 
book  is  of  very  recent  date ;  I  have  by  me  a 
pamphlet  of  still  later  date  —  hot  from  the  press,  in 
fact  —  by  Rev.  Wm.  Gray,  a  missionary;  and  the 
book  and  the  pamphlet  taken  together  make  exceed 
ingly  interesting  reading,  to  my  mind. 

Interesting,  and  easy  to  understand  —  except  in 
one  detail,  which  I  will  mention  presently.  It  is 
easy  to  understand  why  the  Queensland  sugar  planter 

(80) 


Following  the  Equator  81 

should  want  the  Kanaka  recruit:  he  is  cheap.  Very 
cheap,  in  fact.  These  are  the  figures  paid  by  the 
planter :  £20  to  the  recruiter  for  getting  the  Kanaka 
• — or  "catching"  him,  as  the  missionary  phrase 
goes;  £$  to  the  Queensland  government  for  **  super 
intending  ' '  the  importation ;  ,£5  deposited  with  the 
Government  for  the  Kanaka's  passage  home  when 
his  three  years  are  up,  in  case  he  shall  live  that  long; 
about  £2$  to  the  Kanaka  himself  for  three  years' 
wages  and  clothing ;  total  payment  for  the  use  of  a 
man  three  years,  .£53;  or,  including  diet,  £60. 
Altogether,  a  hundred  dollars  a  year.  One  can  un 
derstand  why  the  recruiter  is  fond  of  the  business ; 
the  recruit  costs  him  a  few  cheap  presents  (given  to 
the  recruit's  relatives,  not  to  the  recruit  himself), 
and  the  recruit  is  worth  £20  to  the  recruiter  when 
delivered  in  Queensland.  All  this  is  clear  enough; 
but  the  thing  that  is  not  clear  is,  what  there  is  about 
it  all  to  persuade  the  recruit.  He  is  young  and 
brisk ;  life  at  home  in  his  beautiful  island  is  one  lazy, 
long  holiday  to  him ;  or  if  he  wants  to  work  he  can 
turn  out  a  couple  of  bags  of  copra  per  week  and  sell 
it  for  four  or  five  shillings  a  bag.  In  Queensland  he 
must  get  up  at  dawn  and  work  from  eight  to  twelve 
hours  a  day  in  the  cane-fields  —  in  a  much  hotter 
climate  than  he  is  used  to  —  and  get  less  than  four 
shillings  a  week  for  it. 

I    cannot    understand    his    willingness    to    go    to 
Queensland.     It  is  a  deep  puzzle  to  me.     Here  is 
the  explanation,  from  the  planter's  point  of  view; 
6. 


82  Following  the  Equator 

at  least  I  gather  from  the  missionary's  pamphlet  that 
it  is  the  planter's: 

"  When  he  comes  from  his  home  he  is  a  savage,  pure  and  simple. 
He  feels  no  shame  at  his  nakedness  and  want  of  adornment.  When  he 
returns  home  he  does  so  well  dressed,  sporting  a  Waterbury  watch, 
collars,  cuffs,  boots,  and  jewelry.  He  takes  with  him  one  or  more 
boxes  *  well  rilled  with  clothing,  a  musical  instrument  or  two,  and  per 
fumery  and  other  articles  of  luxury  he  has  learned  to  appreciate." 

For  just  one  moment  we  have  a  seeming  flash  of 
comprehension  of  the  Kanaka's  reason  for  exiling 
himself:  he  goes  away  to  acquire  civilization.  Yes, 
he  was  naked  and  not  ashamed,  now  he  is  clothed 
and  knows  how  to  be  ashamed ;  he  was  unenlight 
ened,  now  he  has  a  Waterbury  watch ;  he  was  unre 
fined,  now  he  has  jewelry,  and  something  to  make 
him  smell  good  ;  he  was  a  nobody,  a  provincial,  now 
he  has  been  to  far  countries  and  can  show  off. 

It  all  looks  plausible  —  for  a  moment.  Then  the 
missionary  takes  hold  of  this  explanation  and  pulls  it 
to  pieces,  and  dances  on  it,  and  damages  it  beyond 
recognition. 

"Admitting  that  the  foregoing  description  is  the  average  one,  the 
average  sequel  is  this:  The  cuffs  and  collars,  if  used  at  all,  are  carried 
off  by  youngsters,  who  fasten  them  round  the  leg,  just  below  the  knee, 
as  ornaments.  The  Waterbury,  broken  and  dirty,  finds  its  way  to  the 
trader,  who  gives  a  trifle  for  it ;  or  the  inside  is  taken  out,  the  wheels 
strung  on  a  thread  and  hung  around  the  neck.  Knives,  axes,  calico, 
and  handkerchiefs  are  divided  among  friends,  and  there  is  hardly  one 
of  these  apiece.  The  boxes,  the  keys  often  lost  on  the  road  home,  can 
be  bought  for  2s.  6d.  They  are  to  be  seen  rotting  outside  in  almost  any 
shore  village  on  Tanna.  (I  speak  of  what  I  have  seen.)  A  returned 
Kanaka  has  been  furiously  angry  with  me  because  I  would  not  buy  his 

*  "  Box  "  is  English  for  trunk. 


Following  the  Equator  83 

trousers,  which  he  declared  were  just  my  fit.  He  sold  them  afterwards 
to  one  of  my  Aniwan  teachers  for  gd.  worth  of  tobacco  —  a  pair  or 
trousers  that  probably  cost  him  8s.  or  IDS.  in  Queensland.  A  coat  or 
shirt  is  handy  for  cold  weather.  The  white  handkerchiefs,  the  '  senet ' 
(perfumery),  the  umbrella,  and  perhaps  the  hat,  are  kept.  The  boots 
have  to  take  their  chance,  if  they  do  not  happen  to  fit  the  copra  trader. 
'  Senet '  on  the  hair,  streaks  of  paint  on  the  face,  a  dirty  white  handker 
chief  round  the  neck,  strips  of  turtle  shell  in  the  ears,  a  belt,  a  sheath 
and  knife,  and  an  umbrella  constitute  the  rig  of  the  returned  Kanaka  at 
home  the  day  after  landing." 

A  hat,  an  umbrella,  a  belt,  a  neckerchief.  Other 
wise  stark  naked.  All  in  a  day  the  hard-earned 
"  civilization  "  has  melted  away  to  this.  And  even 
these  perishable  things  must  presently  go.  Indeed, 
there  is  but  a  single  detail  of  his  civilization  that  can 
be  depended  on  to  stay  by  him :  according  to  the 
missionary,  he  has  learned  to  swear.  This  is  art, 
and  art  is  long,  as  the  poet  says. 

In  all  countries  the  laws  throw  light  upon  the  past. 
The  Queensland  law  for  the  regulation  of  the  Labor 
Traffic  is  a  confession.  It  is  a  confession  that  the 
evils  charged  by  the  missionaries  upon  the  traffic 
had  existed  in  the  past,  and  that  they  still  existed 
when  the  law  was  made.  The  missionaries  make  a 
further  charge :  that  the  law  is  evaded  by  the  re 
cruiters,  and  that  the  Government  Agent  sometimes 
helps  them  to  do  it.  Regulation  31  reveals  two 
things :  that  sometimes  a  young  fool  of  a  recruit  gets 
his  senses  back,  after  being  persuaded  to  sign  away 
his  liberty  for  three  years,  and  dearly  wants  to  get 
out  of  the  engagement  and  stay  at  home  with  his 
own  people;  and  that  threats,  intimidation,  and  force 


84  Following  the  Equator 

are  used  to  keep  him  on  board  the  recruiting  ship, 
and  to  hold  him  to  his  contract.  Regulation  3 1  for 
bids  these  coercions.  The  law  requires  that  he  shall 
be  allowed  to  go  free ;  and  another  clause  of  it  re 
quires  the  recruiter  to  set  him  ashore  —  per  boat, 
because  of  the  prevalence  of  sharks.  Testimony 
from  Rev.  Mr.  Gray : 

"There  are  'wrinkles'  for  taking  the  penitent  Kanaka.  My  first 
experience  of  the  Traffic  was  a  case  of  this  kind  in  1884.  A  vessel 
anchored  just  out  of  sight  of  our  station,  word  was  brought  to  me  that 
some  boys  were  stolen,  and  the  relatives  wished  me  to  go  and  get  them 
back.  The  facts  were,  as  I  found,  that  six  boys  had  recruited,  had 
rushed  into  the  boat,  the  Government  Agent  informed  me.  They  had 
all  '  signed ' ;  and,  said  the  Government  Agent,  *  on  board  they  shall 
remain.'  I  was  assured  that  the  six  boys  were  of  age  and  willing  to  go. 
Yet  on  getting  ready  to  leave  the  ship  I  found  four  of  the  lads  ready  to 
come  ashore  in  the  boat !  This  I  forbade.  One  of  them  jumped  into 
the  water  and  persisted  in  coming  ashore  in  my  boat.  When  appealed 
to,  the  Government  Agent  suggested  that  we  go  and  leave  him  to  be 
picked  up  by  the  ship's  boat,  a  quarter  mile  distant  at  the  time!" 

The  law  and  the  missionaries  feel  for  the  repentant 
recruit  —  and  properly,  one  may  be  permitted  to 
think,  for  he  is  only  a  youth  and  ignorant  and  per 
suadable  to  his  hurt  —  but  sympathy  for  him  is  not 
kept  in  stock  by  the  recruiter.  Rev.  Mr.  Gray 
says: 

"A  captain  many  years  in  the  traffic  explained  to  me  how  a  penitent 
could  be  taken.  '  When  a  boy  jumps  overboard  we  just  take  a  boat 
and  pull  ahead  of  him,  then  lie  between  him  and  the  shore.  If  he  has 
not  tired  himself  swimming,  and  passes  the  boat,  keep  on  heading  him 
in  this  way.  The  dodge  rarely  fails.  The  boy  generally  tires  of  swim 
ming,  gets  into  the  boat  of  his  own  accord,  and  goes  quietly  on  board.'  " 

Yes,  exhaustion  is  likely  to  make  a  boy  quiet.  If 
the  distressed  boy  had  been  the  speaker's  son,  and 


Following  the  Equator  85 

the  captors  savages,  the  speaker  would  have  been 
surprised  to  see  how  differently  the  thing  looked 
from  the  new  point  of  view,  however,  it  is  not  our 
custom  to  put  ourselves  in  the  other  person's  place. 
Somehow  there  is  something  pathetic  about  that  dis 
appointed  young  savage's  resignation.  I  must  ex 
plain,  here,  that  in  the  traffic  dialect,  "boy"  does 
not  always  mean  boy;  it  means  a  youth  above  six 
teen  years  of  age.  That  is  by  Queensland  law 
the  age  of  consent,  though  it  is  held  that  recruiters 
allow  themselves  some  latitude  in  guessing  at  ages. 
Captain  Wawn  of  the  free  spirit  chafes  under  the 
annoyance  of  "cast-iron  regulations."  They  and 
the  missionaries  have  poisoned  his  life.  He  grieves 
for  the  good  old  days,  vanished  to  come  no  more. 
See  him  weep ;  hear  him  cuss  between  the  lines ! 

"For  a  long  time  we  were  allowed  to  apprehend  and  detain  all 
deserters  who  had  signed  the  agreement  on  board  ship,  but  the  *  cast- 
iron*  regulations  of  the  Act  of  1884  put  a  stop  to  that,  allowing  the 
Kanaka  to  sign  the  agreement  for  three  years'  service,  travel  about  in 
the  ship  in  receipt  of  the  regular  rations,  cadge  all  he  could,  and  leave 
when  he  thought  fit,  so  long  as  he  did  not  extend  his  pleasure  trip  to 
Queensland." 

Rev.  Mr.  Gray  calls  this  same  restrictive  cast-iron 
law  a  "  farce."  "  There  is  as  much  cruelty  and  in 
justice  done  to  natives  by  acts  that  are  legal  as  by 
deeds  unlawful.  The  regulations  that  exist  are  un 
just  and  inadequate  —  unjust  and  inadequate  they 
must  ever  be."  He  furnishes  his  reasons  for  his 
position,  but  they  are  too  long  for  reproduction 
here. 


86  Following  the  Equator 

However,  if  the  most  a  Kanaka  advantages  himself 
by  a  three-years  course  in  civilization  in  Queensland 
is  a  necklace  and  an  umbrella  and  a  showy  imperfec 
tion  in  the  art  of  swearing,  it  must  be  that  all  the 
profit  of  the  traffic  goes  to  the  white  man.  This 
could  be  twisted  into  a  plausible  argument  that  the 
traffic  ought  to  be  squarely  abolished. 

However,  there  is  reason  for  hope  that  that  can  be 
left  alone  to  achieve  itself.  It  is  claimed  that  the 
traffic  will  depopulate  its  sources  of  supply  within 
the  next  twenty  or  thirty  years.  Queensland  is  a 
very  healthy  place  for  white  people  —  death-rate  12 
in  i  ,000  of  the  population  —  but  the  Kanaka  death- 
rate  is  away  above  that.  The  vital  statistics  for  1893 
place  it  at  52;  for  1894  (Mackay  district),  68. 
The  first  six  months  of  the  Kanaka's  exile  are  pecu 
liarly  perilous  for  him  because  of  the  rigors  of  the 
new  climate.  The  death-rate  among  the  new  men 
has  reached  as  high  as  180  in  the  1,000.  In  the 
Kanaka's  native  home  his  death-rate  is  12  in  time  of 
peace,  and  15  in  time  of  war.  Thus  exile  to  Queens 
land —  with  the  opportunity  to  acquire  civilization, 
an  umbrella,  and  a  pretty  poor  quality  of  profanity 
—  is  twelve  times  as  deadly  for  him  as  war.  Com 
mon  Christian  charity,  common  humanity,  does  seem 
to  require,  not  only  that  these  people  be  returned  to 
their  homes,  but  that  war,  pestilence,  and  famine  be 
introduced  among  them  for  their  preservation. 

Concerning  these  Pacific  isles  and  their  peoples  an 
eloquent  prophet  spoke  long  years  ago  —  five  and 


Following  the  Equator  87 

fifty  years  ago.  In  fact,  he  spoke  a  little  too  early. 
Prophecy  is  a  good  line  of  business,  but  it  is  full  of 
risks.  This  prophet  was  the  Right  Rev.  M.  Russell, 
LL.D.,  D.C.L.,  of  Edinburgh: 

"  Is  the  tide  of  civilization  to  roll  only  to  the  foot  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  and  is  the  sun  of  knowledge  to  set  at  last  in  the  waves  of 
the  Pacific?  No;  the  mighty  day  of  four  thousand  years  is  drawing  to 
its  close;  the  sun  of  humanity  has  performed  its  destined  course;  but 
long  ere  its  setting  rays  are  extinguished  in  the  west,  its  ascending 
beams  have  glittered  on  the  isles  of  the  eastern  seas.  .  .  .  And 
now  we  see  the  race  of  Japhet  setting  forth  to  people  the  isles,  and  the 
seeds  of  another  Europe  and  a  second  England  sown  in  the  region  of 
the  sun.  But  mark  the  words  of  the  prophecy:  'He  shall  dwell  in 
the  tents  of  Shem,  and  Canaan  shall  be  his  servant.'  It  is  not  said 
Canaan  shall  be  his  slave.  To  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  is  given  the 
scepter  of  the  globe,  but  there  is  not  given  either  the  lash  of  the  slave- 
driver  or  the  rack  of  the  executioner.  The  East  will  not  be  stained 
with  the  same  atrocities  as  the  West;  the  frightful  gangrene  of  an 
enthralled  race  is  not  to  mar  the  destinies  of  the  family  of  Japhet  in  the 
Oriental  world;  humanizing,  not  destroying,  as  they  advance;  uniting 
with,  not  enslaving,  the  inhabitants  with  whom  they  dwell,  the  British 
race  may,"  etc.,  etc. 

And  he  closes  his  vision  with  an  invocation  from 
Campbell : 

"  Come,  bright  Improvement !  on  the  car  of  Time, 
And  rule  the  spacious  world  from  clime  to  clime." 

Very  well,  Bright  Improvement  has  arrived,  you 
see,  with  her  civilization,  and  her  Waterbury,  and 
her  umbrella,  and  her  third-quality  profanity,  and 
her  humanizing-not-destroying  machinery,  and  her 
hundred-and-eighty-death-rate,  and  e*T~ry  thing  is 
going  along  just  as  handsome ! 

But  the  prophet  that  speaks  last  has  an  advantage 


88  Following  the  Equator 

over  the   pioneer  in  the  business.     Rev.  Mr.  Gray 
says: 

"  What  I  am  concerned  about  is  that  we  as  a  Christian  nation  should 
wipe  out  these  races  to  enrich  ourselves." 

And  he  closes  his  pamphlet  with  a  grim  Indictment 
which  is  as  eloquent  in  its  flowerless  straightforward 
English  as  is  the  hand-painted  rhapsody  of  the  early 
prophet : 

"  My  indictment  of  the  Queensland  Kanaka  Labor  Traffic  is  this: 

"I.  It  generally  demoralizes  and  always  impoverishes  the  Kanaka, 
deprives  him  of  his  citizenship,  and  Depopulates  the  islands  fitted  to  his 
home. 

"  2.  It  is  felt  to  lower  the  dignity  of  the  white  agricultural  laborer 
in  Queensland,  and  beyond  a  doubt  it  lowers  his  wages  there. 

"3.  The  whole  system  is  fraught  with  danger  to  Australia  and  the 
islands  on  the  score  of  health. 

"  4.  On  social  and  political  grounds  the  continuance  of  the  Queens 
land  Kanaka  Labor  Traffic  must  be  a  barrier  to  the  true  federation  of 
the  Australian  colonies. 

"5.  The  Regulations  under  which  the  Traffic  exists  in  Queensland 
are  inadequate  to  prevent  abuses,  and  in  the  nature  of  things  they  must 
remain  so. 

"  6.  The  whole  system  is  contrary  to  the  spirit  and  doctrine  of  the 
Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ.  The  Gospel  requires  us  to  help  the  weak,  but 
the  Kanaka  is  fleeced  and  trodden  down. 

"  7.  The  bed-rock  of  this  Traffic  is  that  the  life  and  liberty  of  a 
black  man  are  of  less  value  than  those  of  a  white  man.  And  a  Traffic 
that  has  grown  out  of  *  slave-hunting '  will  certainly  remain  to  the  end 
not  unlike  its  origin." 


CHAPTER   VII. 

Truth  is  the  most  valuable  thing  we  have.    Let  us  economize  it. 

— Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

rROM  DIARY: — For  a  day  or  two  we  have  been 
plowing  among  an  invisible  vast  wilderness  of 
islands,  catching  now  and  then  a  shadowy  glimpse 
of  a  member  of  it.  There  does  seem  to  be  a  pro 
digious  lot  of  islands  this  year;  the  map  of  this 
region  is  freckled  and  fly-specked  all  over  with  them. 
Their  number  would  seem  to  be  uncountable.  We 
are  moving  among  the  Fijis  now  —  224  islands  and 
islets  in  the  group.  In  front  of  us,  to  the  west,  the 
wilderness  stretches  toward  Australia,  then  curves 
upward  to  New  Guinea,  and  still  up  and  up  to  Japan ; 
behind  us,  to  the  east,  the  wilderness  stretches  sixty 
degrees  across  the  wastes  of  the  Pacific ;  south  of  us 
is  New  Zealand.  Somewhere  or  other  among  these 
myriads  Samoa  is  concealed,  and  not  discoverable  on 
the  map.  Still,  if  you  wish  to  go  there,  you  will 
have  no  trouble  about  finding  it  if  you  follow  the 
directions  given  by  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  to  Dr. 
Conan  Doyle  and  to  Mr.  J.  M.  Barrie.  "  You  go 

(89) 


90  Following  the  Equator 

to  America,  cross  the  continent  to  San  Francisco, 
and  then  it's  the  second  turning  to  the  left."  To 
get  the  full  flavor  of  the  joke  one  must  take  a  glance 
at  the  map. 

Wednesday,  September  n. —  Yesterday  we  passed 
close  to  an  island  or  so,  and  recognized  the  pub 
lished  Fiji  characteristics :  a  broad  belt  of  clean  white 
coral  sand  around  the  island ;  back  of  it  a  graceful 
fringe  of  leaning  palms,  with  native  huts  nestling 
cosily  among  the  shrubbery  at  their  bases ;  back  of 
these  a  stretch  of  level  land  clothed  in  tropic  vegeta 
tion;  back  of  that,  rugged  and  picturesque  moun 
tains.  A  detail  of  the  immediate  foreground :  a 
mouldering  ship  perched  high  up  on  a  reef-bench. 

This  completes  the  composition,  and  makes  the 
picture  artistically  perfect. 

In  the  afternoon  we  sighted  Suva,  the  capital  of 
the  group,  and  threaded  our  way  into  the  secluded 
little  harbor  —  a  placid  basin  of  brilliant  blue  and 
green  water  tucked  snugly  in  among  the  sheltering 
hills.  A  few  ships  rode  at  anchor  in  it  —  one  of 
them  a  sailing  vessel  flying  the  American  flag;  and 
they  said  she  came  from  Duluth !  There's  a  jour 
ney  !  Duluth  is  several  thousand  miles  from  the 
sea,  and  yet  she  is  entitled  to  the  proud  name  of 
Mistress  of  the  Commercial  Marine  of  the  United 
States  of  America.  There  is  only  one  free,  inde 
pendent,  unsubsidized  American  ship  sailing  the 
foreign  seas,  and  Duluth  owns  it.  All  by  itself  that 
ship  is  the  American  fleet.  All  by  itself  it  causes 


Following  the  Equator  91 

the  American  name  and  power  to  be  respected  in 
the  far  regions  of  the  globe.  All  by  itself  it  certifies 
to  the  world  that  the  most  populous  civilized  nation 
in  the  earth  has  a  just  pride  in  her  stupendous  stretch 
of  sea-front,  and  is  determined  to  assert  and  main 
tain  her  rightful  place  as  one  of  the  Great  Maritime 
Powers  of  the  Planet.  All  by  itself  it  is  making 
foreign  eyes  familiar  with  a  Flag  which  they  have  not 
seen  before  for  forty  years,  outside  of  the  museum. 
For  what  Duluth  has  done,  in  building,  equipping, 
and  maintaining  at  her  sole  expense  the  American 
Foreign  Commercial  Fleet,  and  in  thus  rescuing  the 
American  name  from  shame  and  lifting  it  high  for 
the  homage  of  the  nations,  we  owe  her  a  debt  of 
gratitude  which  our  hearts  shall  confess  with  quick 
ened  beats  whenever  her  name  is  named  henceforth. 
Many  national  toasts  will  die  in  the  lapse  of  time, 
but  while  the  flag  flies  and  the  Republic  survives, 
they  who  live  under  their  shelter  will  still  drink  this 
one,  standing  and  uncovered :  Health  and  pros 
perity  to  Thee,  O  Duluth,  American  Queen  of  the 
Alien  Seas ! 

Rowboats  began  to  flock  from  the  shore;  their 
crews  were  the  first  natives  we  had  seen.  These 
men  carried  no  overplus  of  clothing,  and  this  was 
wise,  for  the  weather  was  hot.  Handsome,  great 
dusky  men  they  were,  muscular,  clean-limbed,  and 
with  faces  full  of  character  and  intelligence.  It 
would  be  hard  to  find  their  superiors  anywhere 
among  the  dark  races,  I  should  think. 


92  Following  the  Equator 

Everybody  went  ashore  to  look  around,  and  spy 
out  the  land,  and  have  that  luxury  of  luxuries  to  sea- 
voyagers —  a  land-dinner.  And  there  we  saw  more 
natives:  Wrinkled  old  women,  with  their  flat  mam 
mals  flung  over  their  shoulders,  or  hanging  down  in 
front  like  the  cold-weather  drip  from  the  molasses 
faucet;  plump  and  smily  young  girls,  blithe  and 
content,  easy  and  graceful,  a  pleasure  to  look  at; 
young  matrons,  tall,  straight,  comely,  nobly  built, 
sweeping  by  with  chin  up,  and  a  gait  incomparable 
for  unconscious  stateliness  and  dignity;  majestic 
young  men  —  athletes  for  build  and  muscle  —  clothed 
in  a  loose  arrangement  of  dazzling  white,  with  bronze 
breast  and  bronze  legs  naked,  and  the  head  a  can 
non-swab  of  solid  hair  combed  straight  out  from 
the  skull  and  dyed  a  rich  brick-red.  Only  sixty 
years  ago  they  were  sunk  in  darkness;  now  they 
have  the  bicycle. 

We  strolled  about  the  streets  of  the  white  folks' 
little  town,  and  around  over  the  hills  by  paths  and 
roads  among  European  dwellings  and  gardens  and 
plantations,  and  past  clumps  of  hibiscus  that  made  a 
body  blink,  the  great  blossoms  were  so  intensely  red  ; 
and  by  and  by  we  stopped  to  ask  an  elderly  English 
colonist  a  question  or  two,  and  to  sympathize  with 
him  concerning  the  torrid  weather ;  but  he  was  sur 
prised,  and  said : 

"  This?  This  is  not  hot.  You  ought  to  be  here 
in  the  summer  time  once." 

"We  supposed  that  this  was  summer;   it  has  the 


Following  the  Equator  93 

earmarks  of  it.  You  could  take  it  to  almost  any 
country  and  deceive  people  with  it.  But  if  it  isn't 
summer,  what  does  it  lack?  " 

"  It  lacks  half  a  year.     This  is  mid-winter." 

I  had  been  suffering  from  colds  for  several  months, 
and  a  sudden  change  of  season,  like  this,  could 
hardly  fail  to  do  me  hurt.  It  brought  on  another 
cold.  It  is  odd,  these  sudden  jumps  from  season  to 
season.  A  fortnight  ago  we  left  America  in  mid 
summer,  now  it  is  mid-winter;  about  a  week  hence 
we  shall  arrive  in  Australia  in  the  spring. 

After  dinner  I  found  in  the  billiard-room  a  resident 
whom  I  had  known  somewhere  else  in  the  world,  and 
presently  made  some  new  friends  and  drove  with 
them  out  into  the  country  to  visit  His  Excellency  the 
head  of  the  State,  who  was  occupying  his  country 
residence,  to  escape  the  rigors  of  the  winter  weather, 
I  suppose,  for  it  was  on  breezy  high  ground  and 
much  more  comfortable  than  the  lower  regions, 
where  the  town  is,  and  where  the  winter  has  full 
swing,  and  often  sets  a  person's  hair  afire  when  he 
takes  off  his  hat  to  bow.  There  is  a  noble  and 
beautiful  view  of  ocean  and  islands  and  castellated 
peaks  from  the  governor's  high-placed  house,  and 
its  immediate  surroundings  lie  drowsing  in  that 
dreamy  repose  and  serenity  which  are  the  charm  of 
life  in  the  Pacific  Islands. 

One  of  the  new  friends  who  went  out  there  with 
me  was  a  large  man,  and  I  had  been  admiring  his 
size  all  the  way.  I  was  still  admiring  it  as  he  stood 


94  Following  the  Equator 

by  the  governor  on  the  veranda,  talking;  then  the 
Fijian  butler  stepped  out  there  to  announce  tea,  and 
dwarfed  him.  Maybe  he  did  not  quite  dwarf  him, 
but  at  any  rate  the  contrast  was  quite  striking.  Per 
haps  that  dark  giant  was  a  king  in  a  condition  of 
political  suspension.  I  think  that  in  the  talk  there 
on  the  veranda  it  was  said  that  in  Fiji,  as  in  the 
Sandwich  Islands,  native  kings  and  chiefs  are  of 
much  grander  size  and  build  than  the  commoners. 
This  man  was  clothed  in  flowing  white  vestments, 
and  they  were  just  the  thing  for  him ;  they  com 
ported  well  with  his  great  stature  and  his  kingly  port 
and  dignity.  European  clothes  would  have  degraded 
him  and  made  him  commonplace.  I  know  that,  be 
cause  they  do  that  with  everybody  that  wears  them. 
It  was  said  that  the  old-time  devotion  to  chiefs 
and  reverence  for  their  persons  still  survive  in  the 
native  commoner,  and  in  great  force.  The  educated 
young  gentleman  who  is  chief  of  the  tribe  that  live  in 
the  region  about  the  capital  dresses  in  the  fashion  of 
high-class  European  gentlemen,  but  even  his  clothes 
cannot  damn  him  in  the  reverence  of  his  people. 
Their  pride  in  his  lofty  rank  and  ancient  lineage  lives 
on,  in  spite  of  his  lost  authority  and  the  evil  magic 
of  his  tailor.  He  has  no  need  to  defile  himself  with 
work,  or  trouble  his  heart  with  the  sordid  cares  of 
life ;  the  tribe  will  see  to  it  that  he  shall  not  want, 
and  that  he  shall  hold  up  his  head  and  live  like  a 
gentleman.  I  had  a  glimpse  of  him  down  in  the 
town.  Perhaps  he  is  a  descendant  of  the  last  king 


Following  the  Equator  95 

—  the  king  with  the  difficult  name  whose  memory  is 
preserved  by  a  notable  monument  of  cut  stone  which 
one  sees  in  the  enclosure  in  the  middle  of  the  town. 
Thakombau  —  I  remember,  now;  that  is  the  name. 
It  is  easier  to  preserve  it  on  a  granite  block  than  in 
your  head. 

Fiji  was  ceded  to  England  by  this  king  in  1858. 
One  of  the  gentlemen  present  at  the  governor's 
quoted  a  remark  made  by  the  king  at  the  time  of 
the  session  —  a  neat  retort,  and  with  a  touch  of 
pathos  in  it,  too.  The  English  Commissioner  had 
offered  a  crumb  of  comfort  to  Thakombau  by  saying 
that  the  transfer  of  the  kingdom  to  Great  Britain  was 
merely  "  a  sort  of  hermit-crab  formality,  you  know." 
'  Yes,"  said  poor  Thakombau,  "  but  with  this  differ 
ence —  the  crab  moves  into  an  unoccupied  shell,  but 
mine  isn't." 

However,  as  far  as  I  can  make  out  from  the  books, 
the  King  was  between  the  devil  and  the  deep  sea  at 
the  time,  and  hadn't  much  choice.  He  owed  the 
United  States  a  large  debt  —  a  debt  which  he  could 
pay  if  allowed  time,  but  time  was  denied  him.  He 
must  pay  up  right  away  or  the  war-ships  would  be 
upon  him.  To  protect  his  people  from  this  disaster 
he  ceded  his  country  to  Britain,  with  a  clause  in  the 
contract  providing  for  the  ultimate  payment  of  the 
American  debt. 

In  old  times  the  Fijians  were  fierce  fighters ;  they 
were  very  religious,  and  worshiped  idols;  the  big 
chiefs  were  proud  and  haughty,  and  they  were  men 


96  Following  the  Equator 

of  great  style  in  many  ways ;  all  chiefs  had  several 
wives,  the  biggest  chiefs  sometimes  had  as  many  as 
fifty;  when  a  chief  was  dead  and  ready  for  burial, 
four  or  five  of  his  wives  were  strangled  and  put  into 
the  grave  with  him.  In  1804  twenty-seven  British 
convicts  escaped  from  Australia  to  Fiji,  and  brought 
guns  and  ammunition  with  them.  Consider  what  a 
power  they  were,  armed  like  that,  and  what  an  op 
portunity  they  had.  If  they  had  been  energetic 
men  and  sober,  and  had  had  brains  and  known  how 
to  use  them,  they  could  have  achieved  the  sov 
ereignty  of  the  archipelago  —  twenty-seven  kings 
and  each  with  eight  or  nine  islands  under  his  scepter. 
But  nothing  came  of  this  chance.  They  lived  worth 
less  lives  of  sin  and  luxury,  and  died  without  honor 
—  in  most  cases  by  violence.  Only  one  of  them  had 
any  ambition ;  he  was  an  Irishman  named  Connor. 
He  tried  to  raise  a  family  of  fifty  children,  and 
scored  forty-eight.  He  died  lamenting  his  failure. 
It  was  a  foolish  sort  of  avarice.  Many  a  father 
would  have  been  rich  enough  with  forty. 

It  is  a  fine  race,  the  Fijians,  with  brains  in  their 
heads  and  an  inquiring  turn  of  mind.  It  appears 
that  their  savage  ancestors  had  a  doctrine  of  immor 
tality  in  their  scheme  of  religion  —  with  limitations. 
That  is  to  say,  their  dead  friend  would  go  to  a  happy 
hereafter  if  he  could  be  accumulated,  but  not  other 
wise.  They  drew  the  line;  they  thought  that  the 
missionary's  doctrine  was  too  sweeping,  too  compre 
hensive.  They  called  his  attention  to  certain  facts. 


Following  the  Equator  97 

For  instance,  many  of  their  friends  had  been  de 
voured  by  sharks;  the  sharks,  in  their  turn,  were 
caught  and  eaten  by  other  men;  later,  these  men 
were  captured  in  war,  and  eaten  by  the  enemy.  The 
original  persons  had  entered  into  the  composition  of 
the  sharks ;  next,  they  and  the  sharks  had  become 
part  of  the  flesh  and  blood  and  bone  of  the  can 
nibals.  How,  then,  could  the  particles  of  the 
original  men  be  searched  out  from  the  final  con 
glomerate  and  put  together  again?  The  inquirers 
were  full  of  doubts,  and  considered  that  the  mission 
ary  had  not  examined  the  matter  with  the  gravity 
and  attention  which  so  serious  a  thing  deserved. 

The  missionary  taught  these  exacting  savages 
many  valuable  things,  and  got  from  them  one  —  a 
very  dainty  and  poetical  idea:  Those  wild  and 
ignorant  poor  children  of  Nature  believed  that  the 
flowers,  after  they  perish,  rise  on  the  winds  and 
float  away  to  the  fair  fields  of  heaven,  and  flourish 
there  forever  in  immortal  beauty ! 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

It  could  probably  be  shown  by  fadls  and  figures  that  there  is  no  distinctly 
native  American  criminal  class  except  Congress. 

— PudcTnhead  WilsorCs  New  Calendar. 

WHEN  one  glances  at  the  map  the  members  of 
the  stupendous  island  wilderness  of  the  Pacific 
seem  to  crowd  upon  each  other;  but  no,  there  is  no 
crowding,  even  in  the  center  of  a  group ;  and  be 
tween  groups  there  are  lonely  wide  deserts  of  sea. 
Not  everything  is  known  about  the  islands,  their 
peoples  and  their  languages.  A  startling  reminder 
of  this  is  furnished  by  the  fact  that  in  Fiji,  twenty 
years  ago,  were  living  two  strange  and  solitary 
beings  who  came  from  an  unknown  country  and 
spoke  an  unknown  language.  "They  were  picked 
up  by  a  passing  vessel  many  hundreds  of  miles  from 
any  known  land,  floating  in  the  same  tiny  canoe  in 
which  they  had  been  blown  out  to  sea.  When 
found  they  were  but  skin  and  bone.  No  one  could 
understand  what  they  said,  and  they  have  never 
named  their  country;  or,  if  they  have,  the  name 
does  not  correspond  with  that  of  any  island  on  any 
chart.  They  are  now  fat  and  sleek,  and  as  happy 
as  the  day  is  long.  In  the  ship's  log  there  is  an 

198) 


Following  the  Equator  99 

entry  of  the  latitude  and  longitude  in  which  they 
were  found,  and  this  is  probably  all  the  clew  they 
will  ever  have  to  their  lost  homes."* 

What  a  strange  and  romantic  episode  it  is ;  and 
how  one  is  tortured  with  curiosity  to  know  whence 
those  mysterious  creatures  came,  those  Men  Without 
a  Country,  errant  waifs  who  cannot  name  their  lost 
home,  wandering  Children  of  Nowhere. 

Indeed,  the  Island  Wilderness  is  the  very  home  of 
romance  and  dreams  and  mystery.  The  loneliness, 
the  solemnity,  the  beauty,  and  the  deep  repose  of 
this  wilderness  have  a  charm  which  is  all  their  own 
for  the  bruised  spirit  of  men  who  have  fought  and 
failed  in  the  struggle  for  life  in  the  great  world ;  and 
for  men  who  have  been  hunted  out  of  the  great 
world  for  crime ;  and  for  other  men  who  love  an 
easy  and  indolent  existence;  and  for  others  who 
love  a  roving  free  life,  and  stir  and  change  and  ad 
venture  ;  and  for  yet  others  who  love  an  easy  and 
comfortable  career  of  trading  and  money-getting, 
mixed  with  plenty  of  loose  matrimony  by  purchase, 
divorce  without  trial  or  expense,  and  limitless  spree- 
ing  thrown  in  to  make  life  ideally  perfect. 

We  sailed  again,  refreshed. 

The  most  cultivated  person  in  the  ship  was  a 
young  Englishman  whose  home  was  in  New  Zealand. 
He  was  a  naturalist.  His  learning  in  his  specialty 
was  deep  and  thorough,  his  interest  in  his  subject 
amounted  to  a  passion,  he  had  an  easy  gift  of 

*  Forbes' s  "  Two  Years  in  Fiji." 


100  Following  the  Equator 

speech;  and  so,  when  he  talked  about  animals  it 
was  a  pleasure  to  listen  to  him.  And  profitable, 
too,  though  he  was  sometimes  difficult  to  understand 
because  now  and  then  he  used  scientific  technicalities 
which  were  above  the  reach  of  some  of  us.  They 
were  pretty  sure  to  be  above  my  reach,  but  as  he 
was  quite  willing  to  explain  them  I  always  made  it  a 
point  to  get  him  to  do  it.  I  had  a  fair  knowledge 
of  his  subject  —  layman's  knowledge  —  to  begin 
with,  but  it  was  his  teachings  which  crystallized  it 
into  scientific  form  and  clarity  —  in  a  word,  gave  it 
value. 

His  special  interest  was  the  fauna  of  Australasia, 
and  his  knowledge  of  the  matter  was  as  exhaustive 
as  it  was  accurate.  I  already  knew  a  good  deal 
about  the  rabbits  in  Australasia  and  their  marvelous 
fecundity,  but  in  my  talks  with  him  I  found  that  my 
estimate  of  the  great  hindrance  and  obstruction  in 
flicted  by  the  rabbit  pest  upon  traffic  and  travel  was 
far  short  of  the  facts.  He  told  me  that  the  first  pair 
of  rabbits  imported  into  Australasia  bred  so  wonder 
fully  that  within  six  months  rabbits  were  so  thick  in 
the  land  that  people  had  to  dig  trenches  through 
them  to  get  from  town  to  town. 

He  told  me  a  great  deal  about  worms,  and  the 
kangaroo,  and  other  coleoptera,  and  said  he  knew 
the  history  and  ways  of  all  such  pachydermata.  He 
said  the  kangaroo  had  pockets,  and  carried  its  young 
in  them  when  it  couldn't  get  apples.  And  he  said 
that  the  emu  was  as  big  as  an  ostrich,  and  looked 


Following  the  Equator  101 

like  one,  and  had  an  amorphous  appetite  and  would 
cat  bricks.  Also,  that  the  dingo  was  not  a  dingo  at 
all,  but  just  a  wild  dog;  and  that  the  only  difference 
between  a  dingo  and  a  dodo  was  that  neither  of 
them  barked ;  otherwise  they  were  just  the  same. 

He  said  that  the  only  game-bird  in  Australasia 
was  the  wombat,  and  the  only  song-bird  the  larrikin, 
and  that  both  were  protected  by  government.  The 
most  beautiful  of  the  native  birds  was  the  bird  of 
Paradise.  Next  came  the  two  kinds  of  lyres;  not 
spelt  the  same.  He  said  the  one  kind  was  dying 
out,  the  other  thickening  up.  He  explained  that 
the  "Sundowner"  was  not  a  bird,  it  was  a  man; 
sundowner  was  merely  the  Australian  equivalent  of 
our  word,  tramp.  He  is  a  loafer,  a  hard  drinker, 
and  a  sponge.  He  tramps  across  the  country  in  the 
sheep-shearing  season,  pretending  to  look  for  work; 
but  he  always  times  himself  to  arrive  at  a  sheep-run 
just  at  sundown,  when  the  day's  labor  ends;  all  he 
wants  is  whisky  and  supper  and  bed  and  breakfast ; 
he  gets  them  and  then  disappears.  The  naturalist 
spoke  of  the  bell  bird,  the  creature  that  at  short 
intervals  all  day  rings  out  its  mellow  and  exquisite 
peal  from  the  deeps  of  the  forest.  It  is  the  favorite 
and  best  friend  of  the  weary  and  thirsty  sundowner ; 
for  he  knows  that  wherever  the  bell  bird  is,  there  is 
water;  and  he  goes  somewhere  else.  The  naturalist 
said  that  the  oddest  bird  in  Australasia  was  the 
Laughing  Jackass,  and  the  biggest  the  now  extinct 
Great  Moa. 


102  Following  the  Equator 

The  Moa  stood  thirteen  feet  high,  and  could  step 
over  an  ordinary  man's  head  or  kick  his  hat  off; 
and  his  head,  too,  for  that  matter.  He  said  it  was 
wingless,  but  a  swift  runner.  The  natives  used  to 
ride  it.  It  could  make  forty  miles  an  hour,  and 
keep  it  up  for  four  hundred  miles  and  come  out 
reasonably  fresh.  It  was  still  in  existence  when  the 
railway  was  introduced  into  New  Zealand ;  still  in 
existence,  and  carrying  the  mails.  The  railroad 
began  with  the  same  schedule  it  has  now:  two  ex 
presses  a  week  —  time,  twenty  miles  an  hour.  The 
company  exterminated  the  Moa  to  get  the  mails. 

Speaking  of  the  indigenous  coneys  and  bactrian 
camels,  the  naturalist  said  that  the  coniferous  and 
bacteriological  output  of  Australasia  was  remarkable 
for  its  many  and  curious  departures  from  the  ac 
cepted  laws  governing  these  species  of  tubercles,  but 
that  in  his  opinion  Nature's  fondness  for  dabbling 
in  the  erratic  was  most  notably  exhibited  in  that 
curious  combination  of  bird,  fish,  amphibian,  bur- 
rower,  crawler,  quadruped,  and  Christian  called  the 
Ornithorhyncus  —  grotesquest  of  animals,  king  of 
the  animalculae  of  the  world  for  versatility  of  char 
acter  and  make-up.  Said  he: 

"  You  can  call  it  anything  you  want  to,  and  be  right.  It  is  a  fish, 
for  it  lives  in  the  river  half  the  time ;  it  is  a  land  animal,  for  it  resides 
on  the  land  half  the  time ;  it  is  an  amphibian,  since  it  likes  both  and 
does  not  know  which  it  prefers ;  it  is  a  hybernian,  for  when  times  are 
dull  and  nothing  much  going  on  it  buries  itself  under  the  mud  at  the 
bottom  of  a  puddle  and  hybernates  there  a  couple  of  weeks  at  a  time  ; 
it  is  a  kind  of  duck,  for  it  has  a  duck-bill  and  four  webbed  paddles ;  it 


Following  the  Equator  103 

Is  a  fish  and  quadruped  together,  for  in  the  water  it  swims  with  the 
paddles  and  on  shore  it  paws  itself  across  country  with  them ;  it  is  a 
kind  of  seal,  for  it  has  a  seal's  fur ;  it  is  carnivorous,  herbivorous, 
insectivorous,  and  vermifuginous,  for  it  eats  fish  and  grass  and  butter 
flies,  and  in  the  season  digs  worms  out  of  the  mud  and  devours  them  ; 
it  is  clearly  a  bird,  for  it  lays  eggs  and  hatches  them ;  it  is  clearly  a 
mammal,  for  it  nurses  its  young  ;  and  it  is  manifestly  a  kind  of  Christian, 
for  it  keeps  the  Sabbath  when  there  is  anybody  around,  and  when  there 
isn't,  doesn't.  It  has  all  the  tastes  there  are  except  refined  ones,  it  has 
all  the  habits  there  are  except  good  ones. 

"It  is  a  survival — a  survival  of  the  fittest.  Mr.  Darwin  invented 
the  theory  that  goes  by  thatrname,  but  the  Ornithorhyncus  was  the  first 
to  put  it  to  actual  experiment  and  prove  that  it  could  be  done.  Hence 
it  should  have  as  much  of  the  credit  as  Mr.  Darwin.  It  was  never  in 
the  Ark  ;  you  will  find  no  mention  of  it  there  ;  it  nobly  stayed  out  and 
worked  the  theory.  Of  all  creatures  in  the  world  it  was  the  only  one 
properly  equipped  for  the  test.  The  Ark  was  thirteen  months  afloat, 
and  all  the  globe  submerged  ;  no  land  visible  above  the  flood,  no  vege 
tation,  no  food  for  a  mammal  to  eat,  nor  water  for  a  mammal  to  drink  ; 
for  all  mammal  food  was  destroyed,  and  when  the  pure  floods  from 
heaven  and  the  salt  oceans  of  the  earth  mingled  their  waters  and  rose 
above  the  mountain  tops,  the  result  was  a  drink  which  no  bird  or  beast 
of  ordinary  construction  could  use  and  live.  But  this  combination  was 
nuts  for  the  Ornithorhyncus,  if  I  may  use  a  term  like  that  without  offense. 
Its  river  home  had  always  been  salted  by  the  flood  tides  of  the  sea.  On 
the  face  of  the  Noachian  deluge  innumerable  forest  trees  were  floating. 
Upon  these  the  Ornithorhyncus  voyaged  in  peace  ;  voyaged  from  clime  to 
clime,  from  hemisphere  to  hemisphere,  in  contentment  and  comfort,  in 
virile  interest  in  the  constant  change  of  scene,  in  humble  thankfulness 
for  its  privileges,  in  ever-increasing  enthusiasm  in  the  development  of 
the  great  theory  upon  whose  validity  it  had  staked  its  life,  its  fortunes, 
and  its  sacred  honor,  if  I  may  use  such  expressions  without  impropriety 
in  connection  with  an  episode  of  this  nature. 

"  It  lived  the  tranquil  and  luxurious  life  of  a  creature  of  independent 
means.  Of  things  actually  necessary  to  its  existence  and  its  happiness 
not  a  detail  was  wanting.  When  it  wished  to  walk,  it  scrambled  along 
the  tree-trunk ;  it  mused  in  the  shade  of  the  leaves  by  day,  it  slept  in 
their  shelter  by  night ;  when  it  wanted  the  refreshment  of  a  swim,  it  had 
it ;  it  ate  leaves  when  it  wanted  a  vegetable  diet,  it  dug  under  the  bark 


104  Following  the  Equator 

for  worms  and  grubs ;  when  it  wanted  fish  it  caught  them,  when  it 
wanted  eggs  it  laid  them.  If  the  grubs  gave  out  in  one  tree  it  swam  to 
another  ;  and  as  for  fish,  the  very  opulence  of  the  supply  was  an  embar 
rassment.  And  finally,  when  it  was  thirsty  it  smacked  its  chops  in 
gratitude  over  a  blend  that  would  have  slain  a  crocodile. 

"  When  at  last,  after  thirteen  months  of  travel  and  research  in  all  the 
Zones,  it  went  aground  on  a  mountain-summit,  it  strode  ashore,  saying 
in  its  heart,  *  Let  them  that  come  after  me  invent  theories  and  dream 
dreams  about  the  Survival  of  the  Fittest  if  they  like,  but  I  am  the  first 
that  has  done  it ! ' 

"This  wonderful  creature  dates  back,  like  the  kangaroo  and  many 
other  Australian  hydrocephalous  invertebrates,  to  an  age  long  anterior 
to  the  advent  of  man  upon  the  earth  ;  they  date  back,  indeed,  to  a  time 
when  a  causeway,  hundreds  of  miles  wide  and  thousands  of  miles  long, 
joined  Australia  to  Africa,  and  the  animals  of  the  two  countries  were 
alike,  and  all  belonged  to  that  remote  geological  epoch  known  to  science 
as  the  Old  Red  Grindstone  Post-Pleosaurian.  Later  the  causeway  sank 
under  the  sea ;  subterranean  convulsions  lifted  the  African  continent  a 
thousand  feet  higher  than  it  was  before,  but  Australia  kept  her  old  level. 
In  Africa's  new  climate  the  animals  necessarily  began  to  develop  and 
shade  off  into  new  forms  and  families  and  species,  but  the  animals  of 
Australia  as  necessarily  remained  stationary,  and  have  so  remained  until 
this  day.  In  the  course  of  some  millions  of  years  the  African  Ornitho 
rhyncus  developed  and  developed  and  developed,  and  sloughed  off  detail 
after  detail  of  its  make-up  until  at  last  the  creature  became  wholly  dis 
integrated  and  scattered.  Whenever  you  see  a  bird  or  a  beast  or  a  seal 
or  an  otter  in  Africa  you  know  that  he  is  merely  a  sorry  surviving  frag 
ment  of  that  sublime  original  of  whom  I  have  been  speaking  —  that 
creature  which  was  everything  in  general  and  nothing  in  particular  — 
the  opulently  endowed  e  pluribus  unum  of  the  animal  world. 

"  Such  is  the  history  of  the  most  hoary,  the  most  ancient,  the  most 
venerable  creature  that  exists  in  the  earth  to-day  —  Ornithorhyncus 
Platypus  Extraordinariensis  —  whom  God  preserve ! ' ' 

When  he  was  strongly  moved  he  could  rise  and 
soar  like  that  with  ease.  And  not  only  in  the  prose 
form,  but  in  the  poetical  as  well.  He  had  written 
many  pieces  of  poetry  in  his  time,  and  these  manu- 


Following  the  Equator  105 

scripts  he  lent  around  among  the  passengers,  and 
was  willing  to  let  them  be  copied.  It  seemed  to  me 
that  the  least  techincal  one  in  the  series,  and  the 
one  which  reached  the  loftiest  note,  perhaps,  was  his 

INVOCATION 

"  Come  forth  from  thy  oozy  couch, 

O  Ornithorhyncus  dear ! 
And  greet  with  a  cordial  claw 
The  stranger  that  longs  to  hear 

"  From  thy  own  lips  the  tale 

Of  thy  origin  all  unknown: 
Thy  misplaced  bone  where  flesh  should  be 
And  flesh  where  should  be  bone; 

"And  fishy  fin  where  should  be  paw, 

And  beaver-trowel  tail, 
And  snout  of  beast  equip'd  with  teeth 
Where  gills  ought  to  prevail. 

"Come,  Kangaroo,  the  good  and  true! 

Foreshortened  as  to  legs, 
And  body  tapered  like  a  churn, 
And  sack  marsupial,  i'  fegs, 

"  And  tell  us  why  you  linger  here, 
Thou  relic  of  a  vanished  time, 
When  all  your  friends  as  fossils  sleep, 
Immortalized  in  lime  !  " 

Perhaps  no  poet  is  a  conscious  plagiarist;  but 
there  seems  to  be  warrant  for  suspecting  that  there 
is  no  poet  who  is  not  at  one  time  or  another  an 
unconscious  one.  The  above  verses  are  indeed 
beautiful,  and,  in  a  way,  touching;  but  there  is  a 
haunting  something  about  them  which  unavoidably 
suggests  the  Sweet  Singer  of  Michigan.  It  can 


106  Following  the  Equator 

hardly  be  doubted  that  the  author  had  read  the 
works  of  that  poet  and  been  impressed  by  them.  It 
is  not  apparent  that  he  has  borrowed  from  them  any 
word  or  yet  any  phrase,  but  the  style  and  swing  and 
mastery  and  melody  of  the  Sweet  Singer  all  are 
there.  Compare  this  Invocation  with  *'  Frank  But 
ton  ' ' —  particularly  stanzas  first  and  seventeenth  — 
and  I  think  the  reader  will  feel  convinced  that  he 
who  wrote  the  one  had  read  the  other :  * 

I. 

"  Frank  Button  was  as  fine  a  lad 

As  evet  you  wish  to  see, 
And  he  was  drowned  in  Pine  Island  Lake 

On  earth  no  more  will  he  be, 
His  age  was  near  fifteen  years, 

And  he  was  a  motherless  boy, 
He  was  living  with  his  grandmother 

When  he  was  drowned,  poor  boy. 

XVII. 

"  He  was  drowned  on  Tuesday  afternoon, 

On  Sunday  he  was  found, 
And  the  tidings  of  that  drowned  boy 

Was  heard  for  miles  around. 
His  form  was  laid  by  his  mother's  side, 

Beneath  the  cold,  cold  ground, 
His  friends  for  him  will  drop  a  tear 

When  they  view  his  little  mound." 


The  Sentimental  Song  Book.     By  Mrs.  Julia  Moore,  p.  36. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

It  is  your  human  environment  that  makes  climate. 

— Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

SEPT.    15  —  Night.      Close     to    Australia     now, 
Sydney  50  miles  distant. 

That  note  recalls  an  experience.  The  passengers 
were  sent  for,  to  come  up  in  the  bow  and  see  a  fine 
sight.  It  was  very  dark.  One  could  not  follow 
with  the  eye  the  surface  of  the  sea  more  than  fifty 
yards  in  any  direction  —  it  dimmed  away  and  be 
came  lost  to  sight  at  about  that  distance  from  us. 
But  if  you  patiently  gazed  into  the  darkness  a  little 
while,  there  was  a  sure  reward  for  you.  Presently, 
a  quarter  of  a  mile  away  you  would  see  a  blinding 
splash  or  explosion  of  light  on  the  water  —  a  flash 
so  sudden  and  so  astonishingly  brilliant  that  it  would 
make  you  catch  your  breath;  then  that  blotch  of 
light  would  instantly  extend  itself  and  take  the 
corkscrew  shape  and  imposing  length  of  the  fabled 
sea-serpent,  with  every  curve  of  its  body  and  the 
"break"  spreading  away  from  its  head,  and  the 
wake  following  behind  its  tail  clothed  in  a  fierce 
splendor  of  living  fire.  And  my,  but  it  was  coming 
at  a  lightning  gait !  Almost  before  you  could  think, 


108  Following  the  Equator 

this  monster  of  light,  fifty  feet  long,  would  go 
flaming  and  storming  by,  and  suddenly  disappear. 
And  out  in  the  distance  whence  he  came  you  would 
see  another  flash;  and  another  and  another  and 
another,  and  see  them  turn  into  sea-serpents  on  the 
instant;  and  once  sixteen  flashed  up  at  the  same 
time  and  came  tearing  toward  us,  a  swarm  of  wig 
gling  curves,  a  moving  conflagration,  a  vision  of 
bewildering  beauty,  a  spectacle  of  fire  and  energy 
whose  equal  the  most  of  those  people  will  not  see 
again  until  after  they  are  dead. 

It  was  porpoises  —  porpoises  aglow  with  phos 
phorescent  light.  They  presently  collected  in  a  wild 
and  magnificent  jumble  under  the  bows,  and  there 
they  played  for  an  hour,  leaping  and  frolicking  and 
carrying  on,  turning  summersaults  in  front  of  the 
stem  or  across  it  and  never  getting  hit,  never  making 
a  miscalculation,  though  the  stem  missed  them  only 
about  an  inch,  as  a  rule.  They  were  porpoises  of 
the  ordinary  length  —  eight  or  ten  feet  —  but  every 
twist  of  their  bodies  sent  a  long  procession  of  united 
and  glowing  curves  astern.  That  fiery  jumble  was  an 
enchanting  thing  to  look  at,  and  we  stayed  out  the 
performance ;  one  cannot  have  such  a  show  as  that 
twice  in  a  lifetime.  The  porpoise  is  the  kitten  of  the 
sea ;  he  never  has  a  serious  thought,  he  cares  for  noth 
ing  but  fun  and  play.  But  I  think  I  never  saw  him 
at  his  winsomest  until  that  night.  It  was  near  a  center 
of  civilization,  and  he  could  have  been  drinking. 

By  and   by,  when  we  had   approached  to   some- 


Following  the  Equator  109 

where  within  thirty  miles  of  Sydney  Heads  the  great 
electric  light  that  is  posted  on  one  of  those  lofty 
ramparts  began  to  show,  and  in  time  the  little  spark 
grew  to  a  great  sun  and  pierced  the  firmament  of 
darkness  with  a  far-reaching  sword  of  light. 

Sydney  Harbor  is  shut  in  behind  a  precipice  that 
extends  some  miles  like  a  wall,  and  exhibits  no 
break  to  the  ignorant  stranger.  It  has  a  break  in 
the  middle,  but  it  makes  so  little  show  that  even 
Captain  Cook  sailed  by  it  without  seeing  it.  Near 
by  that  break  is  a  false  break  which  resembles  it, 
and  which  used  to  make  trouble  for  the  mariner  at 
night,  in  the  early  days  before  the  place  was  lighted. 
It  caused  the  memorable  disaster  to  the  Duncan 
Dunbar,  one  of  the  most  pathetic  tragedies  in  the 
history  of  that  pitiless  ruffian,  the  sea.  The  ship 
was  a  sailing  vessel ;  a  fine  and  favorite  passenger 
packet,  commanded  by  a  popular  captain  of  high 
reputation.  She  was  due  from  England,  and  Syd 
ney  was  waiting,  and  counting  the  hours;  counting 
the  hours,  and  making  ready  to  give  her  a  heart- 
stirring  welcome ;  for  she  was  bringing  back  a  great 
company  of  mothers  and  daughters,  the  long-missed 
light  and  bloom  of  life  of  Sydney  homes ;  daughters 
that  had  been  years  absent  at  school,  and  mothers 
that  had  been  \vith  them  all  that  time  watching  over 
them.  Of  all  the  world  only  India  and  Australasia 
have  by  custom  freighted  ships  and  fleets  with  their 
hearts,  and  know  the  tremendous  meaning  of  that 
phrase;  only  they  know  what  the  waiting  is  like 


110  Following  the  Equator 

when  this  freightage  is  entrusted  to  the  fickle  winds, 
not  steam,  and  what  the  joy  is  like  when  the  ship 
that  is  returning  this  treasure  comes  safe  to  port  and 
the  long  dread  is  over. 

On  board  the  Duncan  Dunbar,  flying  toward 
Sydney  Heads  in  the  waning  afternoon,  the  happy 
home-comers  made  busy  preparation,  for  it  was  not 
doubted  that  they  would  be  in  the  arms  of  their 
friends  before  the  day  was  done;  they  put  away 
their  sea-going  clothes  and  put  on  clothes  meeter 
for  the  meeting,  their  richest  and  their  loveliest, 
these  poor  brides  of  the  grave.  But  the  wind  lost 
force,  or  there  was  a  miscalculation,  and  before  the 
Heads  were  sighted  the  darkness  came  on.  It  was 
said  that  ordinarily  the  captain  would  have  made  a 
safe  offing  and  waited  for  the  morning;  but  this  was 
no  ordinary  occasion ;  all  about  him  were  appealing 
faces,  faces  pathetic  with  disappointment.  So  his 
sympathy  moved  him  to  try  the  dangerous  passage 
in  the  dark.  He  had  entered  the  Heads  seventeen 
times,  and  believed  he  knew  the  ground.  So  he 
steered  straight  for  the  false  opening,  mistaking  it 
for  the  true  one.  He  did  not  find  out  that  he  was 
wrong  until  it  was  too  late.  There  was  no  saving 
the  ship.  The  great  seas  swept  her  in  and  crushed 
her  to  splinters  and  rubbish  upon  the  rock  tushes  at 
the  base  of  the  precipice.  Not  one  of  all  that  fair 
and  gracious  company  was  ever  seen  again  alive. 
The  tale  is  told  to  every  stranger  that  passes  the 
spot,  and  it  will  continue  to  be  told  to  all  that  come, 


Following  the  Equator  ill 

for  generations;  but  it  will  never  grow  old,  custom 
cannot  stale  it,  the  heart-break  that  is  in  it  can  never 
perish  out  of  it. 

There  were  two  hundred  persons  in  the  ship,  and 
but  one  survived  the  disaster.  He  was  a  sailor.  A 
huge  sea  flung  him  up  the  face  of  the  precipice  and 
stretched  him  on  a  narrow  shelf  of  rock  midway 
between  the  top  and  the  bottom,  and  there  he  lay 
all  night.  At  any  other  time  he  would  have  lain 
there  for  the  rest  of  his  life,  without  chance  of  dis 
covery;  but  the  next  morning  the  ghastly  news 
swept  through  Sydney  that  the  Duncan  Dunbar  had 
gone  down  in  sight  of  home,  and  straightway  the 
walls  of  the  Heads  were  black  with  mourners ;  and 
one  of  these,  stretching  himself  out  over  the  preci 
pice  to  spy  out  what  might  be  seen  below,  discov 
ered  this  miraculously  preserved  relic  of  the  wreck. 
Ropes  were  brought,  and  the  nearly  impossible  feat 
of  rescuing  the  man  was  accomplished.  He  was  a 
person  with  a  practical  turn  of  mind,  and  he  hired  a 
hall  in  Sydney  and  exhibited  himself  at  sixpence  a 
head  till  he  exhausted  the  output  of  the  gold  fields 
for  that  year. 

We  entered  and  cast  anchor,  and  in  the  morning 
went  oh-ing  and  ah-ing  in  admiration  up  through 
the  crooks  and  turns  of  the  spacious  and  beautiful 
harbor  —  a  harbor  which  is  the  darling  of  Sydney 
and  the  wonder  of  the  world.  It  is  not  surprising 
that  the  people  are  proud  of  it,  nor  that  they  put 
their  enthusiasm  into  eloquent  words.  A  returning 


112  Following  the  Equator 

citizen  asked  me  what  I  thought  of  it,  and  I  testified 
with  a  cordiality  which  I  judged  would  be  up  to  the 
market  rate.  I  said  it  was  beautiful  —  superbly 
beautiful.  Then  by  a  natural  impulse  I  gave  God 
the  praise.  The  citizen  did  not  seem  altogether 
satisfied.  He  said: 

"It  is  beautiful,  of  course  it's  beautiful  —  the 
Harbor;  but  that  isn't  all  of  it,  it's  only  half  of  it; 
Sydney's  the  other  half,  and  it  takes  both  of  them 
together  to  ring  the  supremacy-bell.  God  made  the 
Harbor,  and  that's  all  right;  but  Satan  made 
Sydney." 

Of  course  I  made  an  apology ;  and  asked  him  to 
convey  it  to  his  friend.  He  was  right  about  Sydney 
being  half  of  it.  It  would  be  beautiful  without 
Sydney,  but  not  above  half  as  beautiful  as  it  is  now, 
with  Sydney  added.  It  is  shaped  somewhat  like  an 
oak-leaf  —  a  roomy  sheet  of  lovely  blue  water,  with 
narrow  off-shoots  of  water  running  up  into  the 
country  on  both  sides  between  long  fingers  of  land, 
high  wooden  ridges  with  sides  sloped  like  graves. 
Handsome  villas  are  perched  here  and  there  on  these 
ridges,  snuggling  amongst  the  foliage,  and  one 
catches  alluring  glimpses  of  them  as  the  ship  swims 
by  toward  the  city.  The  city  clothes  a  cluster  of 
hills  and  a  ruffle  of  neighboring  ridges  with  its  undu 
lating  masses  of  masonry,  and  out  of  these  masses 
spring  towers  and  spires  and  other  architectural 
dignities  and  grandeurs  that  break  the  flowing  lines 
and  give  picturesqueness  to  the  general  effect. 


Following  the  Equator  113 

The  narrow  inlets  which  I  have  mentioned  go 
wandering  out  into  the  land  everywhere  and  hiding 
themselves  in  it,  and  pleasure-launches  are  always 
exploring  them  with  picnic  parties  on  board.  It  is 
said  by  trustworthy  people  that  if  you  explore  them 
all  you  will  find  that  you  have  covered  700  miles  of 
water  passage.  But  there  are  liars  everywhere  this 
year,  and  they  will  double  that  when  their  works  are 
in  good  going  order. 

October  was  close  at  hand,  spring  was  come.  It 
was  really  spring  —  everybody  said  so;  but  you 
could  have  sold  it  for  summer  in  Canada,  and  no 
body  would  have  suspected.  It  was  the  very 
weather  that  makes  our  home  summers  the  perfec 
tion  of  climatic  luxury;  I  mean,  when  you  are  out 
in  the  wood  or  by  the  sea.  But  these  people  said 
it  was  cool,  now  —  a  person  ought  to  see  Sydney  in 
the  summer  time  if  he  wanted  to  know  what  warm 
weather  is ;  and  he  ought  to  go  north  ten  or  fifteen 
hundred  miles  if  he  wanted  to  know  what  hot 
weather  is.  They  said  that  away  up  there  toward 
the  equator  the  hens  laid  fried  eggs.  Sydney  is  the 
place  to  go  to  get  information  about  other  people's 
climates.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  occupation  of 
Unbiased  Traveler  Seeking  Information  is  the  pleas- 
antest  and  most  irresponsible  trade  there  is.  The 
traveler  can  always  find  out  anything  he  wants  to, 
merely  by  asking.  He  can  get  at  all  the  facts,  and 
more.  Everybody  helps  him,  nobody  hinders  him. 
Anybody  who  has  an  old  fact  in  stock  that  is  no 
8» 


114  Following  the  Equator 

longer  negotiable  in  the  domestic  market  will  let  him 
have  it  at  his  own  price.  An  accumulation  of  such 
goods  is  easily  and  quickly  made.  They  cost  almost 
nothing  and  they  bring  par  in  the  foreign  market. 
Travelers  who  come  to  America  always  freight  up 
with  the  same  old  nursery  tales  that  their  predeces 
sors  selected,  and  they  carry  them  back  and  always 
work  them  off  without  any  trouble  in  the  home 
market. 

If  the  climates  of  the  world  were  determined  by 
parallels  of  latitude,  then  we  could  know  a  place's 
climate  by  its  position  on  the  map ;  and  so  we 
should  know  that  the  climate  of  Sydney  was  the 
counterpart  of  the  climate  of  Columbia,  S.  C.,  and 
of  Little  Rock,  Ark.,  since  Sydney  is  about  the 
same  distance  south  of  the  equator  that  those  other 
towns  are  north  of  it  —  thirty-four  degrees.  But 
no,  climate  disregards  the  parallels  of  latitude.  In 
Arkansas  they  have  a  winter ;  in  Sydney  they  have 
the  name  of  it,  but  not  the  thing  itself.  I  have  seen 
the  ice  in  the  Mississippi  floating  past  the  mouth  of 
the  Arkansas  river;  and  at  Memphis,  but  a  little 
way  above,  the  Mississippi  has  been  frozen  over, 
from  bank  to  bank.  But  they  have  never  had  a  cold 
spell  in  Sydney  which  brought  the  mercury  down  to 
freezing  point.  Once  in  a  mid-winter  day  there,  in 
the  month  of  July,  the  mercury  went  down  to  36°, 
and  that  remains  the  memorable  "  cold  day  "  in  the 
history  of  the  town.  No  doubt  Little  Rock  has  seen 
it  below  zero.  Once,  in  Sydney,  in  mid-summer, 


Following  the  Equator  115 

about  New  Year's  Day,  the  mercury  went  up  to 
1 06°  in  the  shade,  and  that  is  Sydney's  memorable 
hot  day.  That  would  about  tally  with  Little  Rock's 
hottest  day  also,  I  imagine.  My  Sydney  figures  are 
taken  from  a  government  report,  and  are  trust 
worthy.  In  the  matter  of  summer  weather  Arkansas 
has  no  advantage  over  Sydney,  perhaps,  but  when 
it  comes  to  winter  weather,  that  is  another  affair. 
You  could  cut  up  an  Arkansas  winter  into  a  hundred 
Sydney  winters  and  have  enough  left  for  Arkansas 
and  the  poor. 

The  whole  narrow,  hilly  belt  of  the  Pacific  side  of 
New  South  Wales  has  the  climate  of  its  capital  —  a 
mean  winter  temperature  of  54°  and  a  mean  summer 
one  of  71°.  It  is  a  climate  which  cannot  be  im 
proved  upon  for  healthfulness.  But  the  experts  say 
that  90°  in  New  South  Wales  is  harder  to  bear  than 
112°  in  the  neighboring  colony  of  Victoria,  because 
the  atmosphere  of  the  former  is  humid,  and  of  the 
latter  dry. 

The  mean  temperature  of  the  southernmost  point 
of  New  South  Wales  is  the  same  as  that  of  Nice  — 
60° —  yet  Nice  is  further  from  the  equator  by  460 
miles  than  is  the  former. 

But  Nature  is  always  stingy  of  perfect  climates; 
stingier-  in  the  case  of  Australia  than  usual.  Ap 
parently,  this  vast  continent  has  a  really  good 
climate  nowhere  but  around  the  edges. 

If  we  look  at  a  map  of  the  world  we  are  surprised 
to  see  how  big  Australia  is.  It  is  about  two-thirds 


116 


Following  the  Equator 


as   large   as  the  United  States  was  before  we  added 
Alaska. 

But  whereas  one  finds  a  sufficiently  good  climate 
and  fertile  land  almost  everywhere  in  the  United 
States,  it  seems  settled  that  inside  of  the  Australian 
border-belt  one  finds  many  deserts  and  in  spots  a 
climate  which  nothing  can  stand  except  a  few  of  the 
hardier  kinds  of  rocks.  In  effect,  Australia  is  as 
yet  unoccupied.  If  you  take  a  map  of  the  United 


States  and  leave  the  Atlantic  seaboard  States  in 
their  places ;  also  the  fringe  of  Southern  States  from 
Florida  west  to  the  Mouth  of  the  Mississippi ;  also 
a  narrow,  inhabited  streak  up  the  Mississippi  half 
way  to  its  headwaters;  also  a  narrow,  inhabited 
border  along  the  Pacific  coast ;  then  take  a  brushf ul 
of  paint  and  obliterate  the  whole  remaining  mighty 
stretch  of  country  that  lies  between  the  Atlantic 
States  and  the  Pacific-coast  strip,  your  map  will 
look  like  the  latest  map  of  Australia. 

This  stupendous  blank  is  hot,  not  to  say  torrid ; 
a  part  of  it  is  fertile,  the  rest  is  desert;  it  is  not 
liberally  watered  ;  it  has  no  towns.  One  has  only 


Following  the  Equator  117 

to  cross  the  mountains  of  New  South  Wales  and 
descend  into  the  westward-lying  regions  to  find  that 
he  has  left  the  choice  climate  behind  him,  and 
found  a  new  one  of  a  quite  different  character.  In 
fact,  he  would  not  know  by  the  thermometer  that 
he  was  not  in  the  blistering  Plains  of  India.  Cap 
tain  Sturt,  the  great  explorer,  gives  us  a  sample  of 
the  heat. 

"The  wind,  which  had  been  blowing  all  the  morning  from  the 
N.E.,  increased  to  a  heavy  gale,  and  I  shall  never  forget  its  withering 
effect.  I  sought  shelter  behind  a  large  gum-tree,  but  the  blasts  of  heat 
were  so  terrific  that  I  wondered  the  very  grass  did  not  take  fire.  This 
really  was  nothing  ideal:  everything  both  animate  and  inanimate  gave 
way  before  it;  the  horses  stood  with  their  backs  to  the  wind  and  their 
noses  to  the  ground,  without  the  muscular  strength  to  raise  their  heads; 
the  birds  were  mute,  and  the  leaves  of  the  trees  under  which  we  were 
sitting  fell  like  a  snow  shower  around  MS.  At  noon  I  took  a  ther 
mometer  graded  to  127°,  out  of  my  box,  and  observed  that  the  mercury 
was  up  to  125°.  Thinking  that  it  had  been  unduly  influenced,  I  put  it 
in  the  fork  of  a  tree  close  to  me,  sheltered  alike  from  the  wind  and  the 
sun.  I  went  to  examine  it  about  an  hour  afterwards,  when  I  found  the 
mercury  had  risen  to  the  top  of  the  instrument  and  had  burst  the  bulb, 
a  circumstance  that  I  believe  no  traveler  has  ever  before  had  to  record. 
I  cannot  find  language  to  convey  to  the  reader's  mind  an  idea  of  the 
intense  and  oppressive  nature  of  the  heat  that  prevailed." 

That  hot  wind  sweeps  over  Sydney  sometimes, 
and  brings  with  it  what  is  called  a  "dust-storm." 
It  is  said  that  most  Australian  towns  are  acquainted 
with  the  dust-storm.  I  think  I  know  what  it  is  like, 
for  the  following  description  by  Mr.  Gane  tallies  very 
well  with  the  alkali  dust-storm  of  Nevada,  if  you 
leave  out  the  ' '  shovel ' '  part.  Still  the  shovel  part 
is  a  pretty  important  part,  and  seems  to  indicate 
that  my  Nevada  storm  is  but  a  poor  thing,  after  all. 


118  Following  the  Equator 

1 '  As  we  proceeded  the  altitude  became  less,  and  the  heat  propor 
tionately  greater  until  we  reached  Dubbo,  which  is  only  600  feet  above 
sea-level.  It  is  a  pretty  town,  built  on  an  extensive  plain.  .  .  . 
After  the  effects  of  a  shower  of  rain  have  passed  away  the  surface  of  the 
ground  crumbles  into  a  thick  layer  of  dust,  and  occasionally,  when  the 
wind  is  in  a  particular  quarter,  it  is  lifted  bodily  from  the  ground  in 
one  long  opaque  cloud.  In  the  midst  of  such  a  storm  nothing  can  be 
seen  a  few  yards  ahead,  and  the  unlucky  person  who  happens  to  be  out 
at  the  time  is  compelled  to  seek  the  nearest  retreat  at  hand.  When  the 
thrifty  housewife  sees  in  the  distance  the  dark  column  advancing  in  a 
steady  whirl  towards  her  house,  she  closes  the  doors  and  windows  with 
all  expedition.  A  drawing-room,  the  window  of  which  has  been  care 
lessly  left  open  during  a  dust-storm,  is  indeed  an  extraordinary  sight. 
A  lady  who  has  resided  in  Dubbo  for  some  years  says  that  the  dust  lies 
so  thick  on  the  carpet  that  it  is  necessary  to  use  a  shovel  to  remove  it." 

And  probably  a  wagon.  I  was  mistaken;  I  have 
not  seen  a  proper  dust-storm.  To  my  mind  the 
exterior  aspects  and  character  of  Australia  are 
fascinating  things  to  look  at  and  think  about,  they 
are  so  strange,  so  weird,  so  new,  so  uncommon- 
place,  such  a  startling  and  interesting  contrast  to 
the  other  sections  of  the  planet,  the  sections  that  are 
known  to  us  all,  familiar  to  us  all.  In  the  matter  of 
particulars  —  a  detail  here,  a  detail  there  —  we  have 
had  the  choice  climate  of  New  South  Wales'  sea- 
coast  ;  we  have  had  the  Australian  heat  as  furnished 
by  Captain  Sturt;  we  have  had  the  wonderful  dust- 
storm  ;  and  we  have  considered  the  phenomenon  of 
an  almost  empty  hot  wilderness  half  as  big  as  the 
United  States,  with  a  narrow  belt  of  civilization, 
population,  and  good  climate  around  it. 


CHAPTER   X. 


Everything  human  is  pathetic.    The  secret  source  of  Humor  itself  is  not 
joy  but  sorrow.    There  is  no  humor  in  heaven. 

—Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 


/""APTAIN  COOK  found  Australia  in  1770,  and 
V-«  eighteen  years  later  the  British  Government 
began  to  transport  convicts  to  it.  Altogether,  New 
South  Wales  received  83,000  in  53  years.  The 
convicts  wore  heavy  chains;  they  were  ill-fed  and 
badly  treated  by  the  officers  set  over  them ;  they 
were  heavily  punished  for  even  slight  infractions  of 
the  rules;  "the  cruelest  discipline  ever  known"  is 
one  historian's  description  of  their  life.* 

English  law  was  hard-hearted  in  those  days.  For 
trifling  offenses  which  in  our  day  would  be  punished 
by  a  small  fine  or  a  few  days'  confinement,  men, 
women,  and  boys  were  sent  to  this  other  end  of  the 
earth  to  serve  terms  of  seven  and  fourteen  years ; 
and  for  serious  crimes  they  were  transported  for  life. 
Children  were  sent  to  the  penal  colonies  for  seven 
years  for  stealing  a  rabbit ! 

When  I  was  in  London  twenty-three  years  ago 
there  was  a  new  penalty  in  force  for  diminishing 

*The  Story  of  Australasia.     J.  S.  Laurie. 

(119) 


120  Following  the  Equator 

garroting  and  wife-beating — 25  lashes  on  the  bare 
back  with  the  cat-o' -nine-tails.  It  was  said  that  this 
terrible  punishment  was  able  to  bring  the  stubbornest 
ruffians  to  terms ;  and  that  no  man  had  been  found 
with  grit  enough  to  keep  his  emotions  to  himself 
beyond  the  ninth  blow ;  as  a  rule  the  man  shrieked 
earlier.  That  penalty  had  a  great  and  wholesome 
effect  upon  the  garroters  and  wife-beaters;  but 
humane  modern  London  could  not  endure  it;  it  got 
its  law  rescinded.  Many  a  bruised  and  battered 
English  wife  has  since  had  occasion  to  deplore  that 
cruel  achievement  of  sentimental  "  humanity." 

Twenty-five  lashes !  In  Australia  and  Tasmania 
they  gave  a  convict  fifty  for  almost  any  little  offense ; 
and  sometimes  a  brutal  officer  would  add  fifty,  and 
then  another  fifty,  and  so  on,  as  long  as  the  sufferer 
could  endure  the  torture  and  live.  In  Tasmania  I 
read  the  entry,  in  an  old  manuscript  official  record, 
of  a  case  where  a  convict  was  given  three  hundred 
lashes  —  for  stealing  some  silver  spoons.  And  men 
got  more  than  that,  sometimes.  Who  handled  the 
cat?  Often  it  was  another  convict;  sometimes  it 
was  the  culprit's  dearest  comrade;  and  he  had  to 
lay  on  with  all  his  might ;  otherwise  he  would  get  a 
flogging  himself  for  his  mercy  —  for  he  was  under 
watch  —  and  yet  not  do  his  friend  any  good :  the 
friend  would  be  attended  to  by  another  hand  and 
suffer  no  lack  in  the  matter  of  full  punishment. 

The  convict  life  in  Tasmania  was  so  unendurable, 
and  suicide  so  difficult  to  accomplish,  that  once  or 


Following  the  Equator  121 

twice  despairing  men  got  together  and  drew  straws 
to  determine  which  of  them  should  kill  another  of 
the  group  —  this  murder  to  secure  death  to  the  per 
petrator  and  to  the  witnesses  of  it  by  the  hand  of 
the  hangman ! 

The  incidents  quoted  above  are  mere  hints,  mere 
suggestions  of  what  convict  life  was  like  —  they  are 
but  a  couple  of  details  tossed  into  view  out  of  a 
shoreless  sea  of  such;  or,  to  change  the  figure, 
they  are  but  a  pair  of  flaming  steeples  photographed 
from  a  point  which  hides  from  sight  the  burning  city 
which  stretches  away  from  their  bases  on  every  hand. 

Some  of  the  convicts  — indeed,  a  good  many  of 
them  —  were  very  bad  people,  even  for  that  day; 
but  the  most  of  them  were  probably  not  noticeably 
worse  than  the  average  of  the  people  they  left  be 
hind  them  at  home.  We  must  believe  this;  we 
cannot  avoid  it.  We  are  obliged  to  believe  that  a 
nation  that  could  look  on,  unmoved,  and  see  starving 
or  freezing  women  hanged  for  stealing  twenty-six 
cents'  worth  of  bacon  or  rags,  and  boys  snatched 
from  their  mothers,  and  men  from  their  families, 
and  sent  to  the  other  side  of  the  world  for  long 
terms  of  years  for  similar  trifling  offenses,  was  a 
nation  to  whom  the  term  "civilized"  could  not  in 
any  large  way  be  applied.  And  we  must  also  be 
lieve  that  a  nation  that  knew,  during  more  than 
forty  years,  what  was  happening  to  those  exiles  and 
was  still  content  with  it,  was  not  advancing  in  any 
showy  way  toward  a  higher  grade  of  civilization. 


122  Following  the  Equator 

If  we  look  into  the  characters  and  conduct  of  the 
officers  and  gentlemen  who  had  charge  of  the  con 
victs  and  attended  to  their  backs  and  stomachs,  we 
must  grant  again  that  as  between  the  convict  and  his 
masters,  and  between  both  and  the  nation  at  home, 
there  was  a  quite  noticeable  monotony  of  sameness. 

Four  years  had  gone  by,  and  many  convicts  had 
come.  Respectable  settlers  were  beginning  to  ar 
rive.  These  two  classes  of  colonists  had  to  be  pro 
tected,  in  case  of  trouble  among  themselves  or  with 
the  natives.  It  is  proper  to  mention  the  natives, 
though  they  could  hardly  count,  they  were  so  scarce. 
At  a  time  when  they  had  not  as  yet  begun  to  be 
much  disturbed  —  not  as  yet  being  in  the  way  —  it 
was  estimated  that  in  New  South  Wales  there  was 
but  one  native  to  45,000  acres  of  territory. 

People  had  to  be  protected.  Officers  of  the 
regular  army  did  not  want  this  service  —  away  off 
there  where  neither  honor  nor  distinction  was  to  be 
gained.  So  England  recruited  and  officered  a  kind 
of  militia  force  of  I  ,OOO  uniformed  civilians  called 
the  "  New  South  Wales  Corps  "  and  shipped  it. 

This  was  the  worst  blow  of  all.  The  colony 
fairly  staggered  under  it.  The  Corps  was  an  object- 
lesson  of  the  moral  condition  of  England  outside  of 
the  jails.  The  colonists  trembled.  It  was  feared 
that  next  there  would  be  an  importation  of  the 
nobility. 

In  those  early  days  the  colony  was  non-support 
ing.  All  the  necessaries  of  life  —  food,  clothing, 


Following  the  Equator  123 

and  all  —  were  sent  out  from  England,  and  kept  in 
great  government  storehouses,  and  given  to  the 
convicts  and  sold  to  the  settlers  —  sold  at  a  trifling 
advance  upon  cost.  The  Corps  saw  its  opportunity. 
Its  officers  went  into  commerce,  and  in  a  most  law 
less  way.  They  went  to  importing  rum,  and  also  to 
manufacturing  it  in  private  stills,  in  defiance  of  the 
government's  commands  and  protests.  They  leagued 
themselves  together  and  ruled  the  market ;  they  boy 
cotted  the  government  and  the  other  dealers ;  they 
established  a  close  monopoly  and  kept  it  strictly  in 
their  own  hands.  When  a  vessel  arrived  with 
spirits,  they  allowed  nobody  to  buy  but  themselves, 
and  they  forced  the  owner  to  sell  to  them  at  a  price 
named  by  themselves  —  and  it  was  always  low 
enough.  They  bought  rum  at  an  average  of  two 
dollars  a  gallon  and  sold  it  at  an  average  of  ten. 
They  made  rum  the  currency  of  the  country  —  for 
there  was  little  or  no  money  —  and  they  maintained 
their  devastating  hold  and  kept  the  colony  under 
their  heel  for  eighteen  or  twenty  years  before  they 
were  finally  conquered  and  routed  by  the  govern 
ment. 

Meantime,  they  had  spread  intemperance  every 
where.  And  they  had  squeezed  farm  after  farm  out 
of  the  settlers'  hands  for  rum,  and  thus  had  bounti 
fully  enriched  themselves.  When  a  farmer  was 
caught  in  the  last  agonies  of  thirst  they  took  advan 
tage  of  him  and  sweated  him  for  a  drink. 

In  one  instance  they  sold  a  man  a  gallon  of  rum 


124  Following  the  Equator 

worth  two  dollars  for  a  piece  of  property  which  was 
sold  some  years  later  for  $100,000. 

When  the  colony  was  about  eighteen  or  twenty 
years  old  it  was  discovered  that  the  land  was  spe 
cially  fitted  for  the  wool  culture.  Prosperity  fol 
lowed,  commerce  with  the  world  began,  by  and  by 
rich  mines  of  the  noble  metals  were  opened,  immi 
grants  flowed  in,  capital  likewise.  The  result  is  the 
great  and  wealthy  and  enlightened  commonwealth  of 
New  South  Wales. 

It  is  a  country  that  is  rich  in  mines,  wool  ranches, 
trams,  railways,  steamship  lines,  schools,  news 
papers,  botanical  gardens,  art  galleries,  libraries, 
museums,  hospitals,  learned  societies;  it  is  the  hos 
pitable  home  of  every  species  of  culture  and  of 
every  species  of  material  enterprise,  and  there  is  a 
church  at  every  man's  door,  and  a  race-track  over 
the  way. 


CHAPTER   XI. 

We  should  be  careful  to  get  out  of  an  experience  only  the  wisdom  that  is  in 
it  — and  stop  there;  lest  we  be  like  the  cat  that  sits  down  on  a  hot  stove-lid. 
She  will  never  sit  down  on  a  hot  stove-lid  again  —  and  that  is  well ;  but  also 
she  will  never  sit  down  on  a  cold  one  any  more. 

— PudcTnhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

ALL  English-speaking  colonies  are  made  up  of 
lavishly  hospitable  people,  and  New  South 
Wales  and  its  capital  are  like  the  rest  in  this.  The 
English-speaking  colony  of  the  United  States  of 
America  is  always  called  lavishly  hospitable  by  the 
English  traveler.  As  to  the  other  English-speaking 
colonies  throughout  the  world  from  Canada  all 
around,  I  know  by  experience  that  the  description 
fits  them.  I  will  not  go  more  particularly  into  this 
matter,  for  I  find  that  when  writers  try  to  distribute 
their  gratitude  here  and  there  and  yonder  by  detail 
they  run  across  difficulties  and  do  some  ungraceful 
stumbling. 

Mr.  Gane  ("New  South  Wales  and  Victoria  in 
1885  "),  tried  to  distribute  his  gratitude,  and  was 
not  lucky : 

"The  inhabitants  of  Sydney  are  renowned  for  their  hospitality. 
The  treatment  which  we  experienced  at  the  hands  of  this  generous- 
hearted  people  will  help  more  than  anything  else  to  make  us  recollect 

(125) 


126  Following  the  Equator 

with  pleasure  our  stay  amongst  them.  In  the  character  of  hosts  and 
hostesses  they  excel.  The  'new  chum'  needs  only  the  acquaintance 
ship  of  one  of  their  number,  and  he  becomes  at  once  the  happy 
recipient  of  numerous  complimentary  invitations  and  thoughtful  kind 
nesses.  Of  the  towns  it  has  been  our  good  fortune  to  visit,  none  have 
portrayed  home  so  faithfully  as  Sydney." 

Nobody  could  say  it  finer  than  that.  If  he  had 
put  in  his  cork  then,  and  stayed  away  from  Dubbo 
—  but  no  ;  heedless  man,  he  pulled  it  again.  Pulled 
it  when  he  was  away  along  in  his  book,  and  his 
memory  of  what  he  had  said  about  Sydney  had 
grown  dim : 

"We  cannot  quit  the  promising  town  of  Dubbo  without  testifying, 
in  warm  praise,  to  the  kind-hearted  and  hospitable  usages  of  its  in 
habitants.  Sydney,  though  well  deserving  the  character  it  bears  of  its 
kindly  treatment  of  strangers,  possesses  a  little  formality  and  reserve. 
In  Dubbo,  on  the  contrary,  though  the  same  congenial  manners  prevail, 
there  is  a  pleasing  degree  of  respectful  familiarity  which  gives  the  town 
a  homely  comfort  not  often  met  with  elsewhere.  In  laying  on  one  side 
our  pen  we  feel  contented  in  having  been  able,  though  so  late  in  this 
work,  to  bestow  a  panegyric,  however  unpretentious,  on  a  town  which, 
though  possessing  no  picturesque  natural  surroundings,  nor  interesting 
architectural  productions,  has  yet  a  body  of  citizens  whose  hearts  cannot 
but  obtain  for  their  town  a  reputation  for  benevolence  and  kind- 
heartedness." 

I  wonder  what  soured  him  on  Sydney.  It  seems 
strange  that  a  pleasing  degree  of  three  or  four 
fingers  of  respectful  familiarity  should  fill  a  man  up 
and  give  him  the  panegyrics  so  bad.  For  he  has 
them,  the  worst  way  —  any  one  can  see  that.  A  man 
who  is  perfectly  at  himself  does  not  throw  cold  detrac 
tion  at  people's  architectural  productions  and  pic 
turesque  surroundings,  and  let  on  that  what  he  pre 
fers  is  a  Dubbonese  dust-storm  and  a  pleasing  degree 


Following  the  Equator  127 

of  respectful  familiarity.  No,  these  are  old,  old 
symptoms;  and  when  they  appear  we  know  that 
the  man  has  got  the  panegyrics. 

Sydney  has  a  population  of  400,000.  When  a 
stranger  from  America  steps  ashore  there,  the  first 
thing  that  strikes  him  is  that  the  place  is  eight  or 
nine  times  as  large  as  he  was  expecting  it  to  be ;  and 
the  next  thing  that  strikes  him  is  that  it  is  an  Eng 
lish  city  with  American  trimmings.  Later  on,  in 
Melbourne,  he  will  find  the  American  trimmings  still 
more  in  evidence;  there,  even  the  architecture  will 
often  suggest  America ;  a  photograph  of  its  stateli 
est  business  street  might  be  passed  upon  him  for  a 
picture  of  the  finest  street  in  a  large  American  city. 
I  was  told  that  the  most  of  the  fine  residences  were  the 
city  residences  of  squatters.  The  name  seemed  out 
of  focus  somehow.  When  the  explanation  came,  it 
offered  a  new  instance  of  the  curious  changes  which 
words,  as  well  as  animals,  undergo  through  change 
of  habitat  and  climate.  With  us,  when  you  speak 
of  a  squatter  you  are  always  supposed  to  be  speaking 
of  a  poor  man,  but  in  Australia  when  you  speak  of 
a  squatter  you  are  supposed  to  be  speaking  of  a 
millionaire ;  in  America  the  word  indicates  the  pos 
sessor  of  a  few  acres  and  a  doubtful  title,  in  Austra 
lia  it  indicates  a  man  whose  land  front  is  as  long  as  a 
railroad,  and  whose  title  has  been  perfected  in  one 
way  or  another;  in  America  the  word  indicates  a 
man  who  owns  a  dozen  head  of  live  stock,  in 
Australia  a  man  who  owns  anywhere  from  fifty 


128  Following  the  Equator 

thousand  up  to  half  a  million  head ;  in  America  the 
word  indicates  a  man  who  is  obscure  and  not  im 
portant,  in  Australia  a  man  who  is  prominent  and  of 
the  first  importance ;  in  America  you  take  off  your 
hat  to  no  squatter,  in  Australia  you  do ;  in  America 
if  your  uncle  is  a  squatter  you  keep  it  dark,  in 
Australia  you  advertise  it ;  in  America  if  your  friend 
is  a  squatter  nothing  comes  of  it,  but  with  a  squatter 
for  your  friend  in  Australia  you  may  sup  with  kings 
if  there  are  any  around. 

In  Australia  it  takes  about  two  acres  and  a  half  of 
pasture-land  (some  people  say  twice  as  many),  to 
support  a  sheep ;  and  when  the  squatter  has  half  a 
million  sheep  his  private  domain  is  about  as  large  as 
Rhode  Island,  to  speak  in  general  terms.  His 
annual  wool  crop  may  be  worth  a  quarter  or  a  half 
million  dollars. 

He  will  live  in  a  palace  in  Melbourne  or  Sydney 
or  some  other  of  the  large  cities,  and  make  occasional 
trips  to  his  sheep-kingdom  several  hundred  miles 
away  in  the  great  plains  to  look  after  his  battalions 
of  riders  and  shepherds  and  other  hands.  He  has  a 
commodious  dwelling  out  there,  and  if  he  approve 
of  you  he  will  invite  you  to  spend  a  week  in  it,  and 
will  make  you  at  home  and  comfortable,  and  let  you 
see  the  great  industry  in  all  its  details,  and  feed  you 
and  slake  you  and  smoke  you  with  the  best  that 
money  can  buy. 

On  at  least  one  of  these  vast  estates  there  is  a  con 
siderable  town,  with  all  the  various  businesses  and 


Following  the  Equator  129 

occupations  that  go  to  make  an  important  town; 
and  the  town  and  the  land  it  stands  upon  are  the 
property  of  the  squatters.  I  have  seen  that  town, 
and  it  is  not  unlikely  that  there  are  other  squatter- 
owned  towns  in  Australia. 

Australia  supplies  the  world  not  only  with  fine 
wool,  but  with  mutton  also.  The  modern  invention 
of  cold  storage  and  its  application  in  ships  has 
created  this  great  trade.  In  Sydney  I  visited  a  huge 
establishment  where  they  kill  and  clean  and  solidly 
freeze  a  thousand  sheep  a  day,  for  shipment  to 
England. 

The  Australians  did  not  seem  to  me  to  differ 
noticeably  from  Americans,  either  in  dress,  carnage, 
ways,  pronunciation,  inflections,  or  general  appear 
ance.  There  were  fleeting  and  subtle  suggestions  of 
their  English  origin,  but  these  were  not  pronounced 
enough,  as  a  rule,  to  catch  one's  attention.  The 
people  have  easy  and  cordial  manners  from  the  be 
ginning  —  from  the  moment  that  the  introduction  is 
completed.  This  is  American.  To  put  it  in  another 
way,  it  is  English  friendliness  with  the  English  shy 
ness  and  self-consciousness  left  out. 

Now  and  then  —  but  this  is  rare  —  one  hears  such 
words  as  piper  for  paper,  lydy  for  lady,  and  tyble  for 
table  fall  from  lips  whence  one  would  not  expect 
such  pronunciations  to  come.  There  is  a  superstition 
prevalent  in  Sydney  that  this  pronunciation  is  an 
Australianism,  but  people  who  have  been  "  home  " 

- —  as  the  native  reverently  and  lovingly  calls  England 
9» 


130  Following  the  Equator 

—  know  better.  It  is  "  costermonger."  All  over 
Australasia  this  pronunciation  is  nearly  as  common 
among  servants  as  it  is  in  London  among  the  unedu 
cated  and  the  partially  educated  of  all  sorts  and  con 
ditions  of  people.  That  mislaid  y  is  rather  striking 
when  a  person  gets  enough  of  it  into  a  short  sentence 
to  enable  it  to  show  up.  In  the  hotel  in  Sydney 
the  chambermaid  said  one  morning: 

"The  tyble  is  set,  and  here  is  the  piper;  and  if 
the  lydy  is  ready  I'll  tell  the  wyter  to  bring  up  the 
breakfast." 

I  have  made  passing  mention,  a  moment  ago,  of 
the  native  Australasian's  custom  of  speaking  of  Eng 
land  as  "home."  It  was  always  pretty  to  hear  it, 
and  often  it  was  said  in  an  unconsciously  caressing 
way  that  made  it  touching ;  in  a  way  which  trans 
muted  a  sentiment  into  an  embodiment,  and  made 
one  seem  to  see  Australasia  as  a  young  girl  stroking 
mother  England's  old  gray  head. 

In  the  Australasian  home  the  table-talk  is  vivacious 
and  unembarrassed ;  it  is  without  stiffness  or  restraint. 
This  does  not  remind  one  of  England  so  much  as  it 
does  of  America.  But  Australasia  is  strictly  demo 
cratic,  and  reserves  and  restraints  are  things  that  are 
bred  by  differences  of  rank. 

English  and  colonial  audiences  are  phenomenally 
alert  and  responsive.  Where  masses  of  people  are 
gathered  together  in  England,  caste  is  submerged, 
and  with  it  the  English  reserve ;  equality  exists  for 
the  moment,  and  every  individual  is  free;  so  free 


Following  the  Equator  131 

from  any  consciousness  of  fetters,  indeed,  that  the 
Englishman's  habit  of  watching  himself  and  guard 
ing  himself  against  any  injudicious  exposure  of  his 
feelings  is  forgotten,  and  falls  into  abeyance  —  and 
to  such  a  degree,  indeed,  that  he  will  bravely  applaud 
all  by  himself  if  he  wants  to  —  an  exhibition  of  dar 
ing  which  is  unusual  elsewhere  in  the  world. 

But  it  is  hard  to  move  a  new  English  acquaintance 
when  he  is  by  himself,  or  when  the  company  present 
is  small,  and  new  to  him.  He  is  on  his  guard  then, 
and  his  natural  reserve  is  to  the  fore.  This  has 
given  him  the  false  reputation  of  being  without 
humor  and  without  the  appreciation  of  humor. 
Americans  are  not  Englishmen,  and  American  humor 
is  not  English  humor;  but  both  the  American  and 
his  humor  had  their  origin  in  England,  and  have 
merely  undergone  changes  brought  about  by  changed 
conditions  and  a  new  environment.  About  the  best 
humorous  speeches  I  have  yet  heard  were  a  couple 
that  were  made  in  Australia  at  club  suppers  —  one  of 
them  by  an  Englishman,  the  other  by  an  Australian. 


CHAPTER  XII. 


There  are  those  who  scoff  at  the  schoolboy,  calling  him  frivolous  and  shal 
low.  Yet  it  was  the  schoolboy  who  said,  "  Faith  is  believing  what  you  know 
ain't  so."  —  Pudd^nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 


IN  Sydney  I  had  a  large  dream,  and  in  the  course 
of  talk  I  told  it  to  a  missionary  from  India  who 
was  on  his  way  to  visit  some  relatives  in  New  Zea 
land.  I  dreamed  that  the  visible  universe  is  the 
physical  person  of  God ;  that  the  vast  worlds  that  we 
see  twinkling  millions  of  miles  apart  in  the  fields  of 
space  are  the  blood  corpuscles  in  His  veins ;  and  that 
we  and  the  other  creatures  are  the  microbes  that 
charge  with  multitudinous  life  the  corpuscles. 

Mr.  X.,  the  missionary,  considered  the  dream 
awhile,  then  said : 

"  It  is  not  surpassable  for  magnitude,  since  its  metes  and  bounds  are 
the  metes  and  bounds  of  the  universe  itself ;  and  it  seems  to  me  that  it 
almost  accounts  for  a  thing  which  is  otherwise  nearly  unaccountable  — 
the  origin  of  the  sacred  legends  of  the  Hindoos.  Perhaps  they  dream 
them,  and  then  honestly  believe  them  to  be  divine  revelations  of  fact.  It 
looks  like  that,  for  the  legends  are  built  on  so  vast  a  scale  that  it  does 
not  seem  reasonable  that  plodding  priests  would  happen  upon  such' 
colossal  fancies  when  awake." 

He  told  some  of  the  legends,  and  said  that  they 
were  implicitly  believed  by  all  classes  of  Hindoos, 

(132) 


Following  the  Equator  133 

including  those  of  high  social  position  and  intel 
ligence  ;  and  he  said  that  this  universal  credulity  was 
a  great  hindrance  to  the  missionary  in  his  work. 
Then  he  said  something  like  this : 

"At  home,  people  wonder  why  Christianity  does  not  make  faster 
progress  in  India.  They  hear  that  the  Indians  believe  easily,  and  that 
they  have  a  natural  trust  in  miracles  and  give  them  a  hospitable  recep 
tion.  Then  they  argue  like  this:  since  the  Indian  believes  easily,  place 
Christianity  before  them  and  they  must  believe ;  confirm  its  truths  by 
the  biblical  miracles,  and  they  will  no  longer  doubt.  The  natural  deduc 
tion  is,  that  as  Christianity  makes  but  indifferent  progress  in  India,  the 
fault  is  with  us :  we  are  not  fortunate  in  presenting  the  doctrines  and 
the  miracles. 

"  But  the  truth  is,  we  are  not  by  any  means  so  well  equipped  as  they 
think.  We  have  not  the  easy  task  that  they  imagine.  To  use  a  military 
figure,  we  are  sent  against  the  enemy  with  good  powder  in  our  guns, 
but  only  wads  for  bullets  ;  that  is  to  say,  our  miracles  are  not  effective  ; 
the  Hindoos  do  not  care  for  them  ;  they  have  more  extraordinary  ones 
of  their  own.  All  the  details  of  their  own  religion  are  proven  and 
established  by  miracles  ;  the  details  of  ours  must  be  proven  in  the  same 
way.  When  I  first  began  my  work  in  India  I  greatly  underestimated 
the  difficulties  thus  put  upon  my  task.  A  correction  was  not  long  in 
coming.  I  thought  as  our  friends  think  at  home  —  that  to  prepare  my 
childlike  wonder-lovers  to  listen  with  favor  to  my  grave  message  I  only 
needed  to  charm  the  way  to  it  with  wonders,  marvels,  miracles.  With 
full  confidence  I  told  the  wonders  performed  by  Samson,  the  strongest 
man  that  had  ever  lived  —  for  so  I  called  him. 

"At  first  I  saw  lively  anticipation  and  strong  interest  in  the  faces  of 
my  people,  but  as  I  moved  along  from  incident  to  incident  of  the  great 
story,  I  was  distressed  to  see  that  I  was  steadily  losing  the  sympathy  of 
my  audience.  I  could  not  understand  it.  It  was  a  surprise  to  me,  and 
a  disappointment.  Before  I  was  through,  the  fading  sympathy  had 
paled  to  indifference.  Thence  to  the  end  the  indifference  remained;  I 
was  not  able  to  make  any  impression  upon  it. 

"  A  good  old  Hindoo  gentleman  told  me  where  my  trouble  lay.  He 
said,  '  We  Hindoos  recognize  a  god  by  the  work  of  his  hands  —  we 
accept  no  other  testimony.  Apparently,  this  is  also  the  rule  with  you 


134  Following  the  Equator 

Christians.  And  we  know  when  a  man  has  his  power  from  a  god  by 
the  fact  that  he  does  things  which  he  could  not  do,  as  a  man,  with  the 
mere  powers  of  a  man.  Plainly,  this  is  the  Christian's  way  also,  of 
knowing  when  a  man  is  working  by  a  god's  power  and  not  by  his  own. 
You  saw  that  there  was  a  supernatural  property  in  the  hair  of  Samson; 
for  you  perceived  that  when  his  hair  was  gone  he  was  as  other  men.  It 
is  our  way,  as  I  have  said.  There  are  many  nations  in  the  world,  and 
each  group  of  nations  has  it  own  gods,  and  will  pay  no  worship  to  the 
gods  of  the  others.  Each  group  believes  its  own  gods  to  be  strongest, 
and  it  will  not  exchange  them  except  for  gods  that  shall  be  proven  to  be 
their  superiors  in  power.  Man  is  but  a  weak  creature,  and  needs  the 
help  of  gods  —  he  cannot  do  without  it.  Shall  he  place  his  fate  in  the 
hands  of  weak  gods  when  there  may  be  stronger  ones  to  be  found? 
That  would  be  foolish.  No,  if  he  hear  of  gods  that  are  stronger  than 
his  own,  he  should  not  turn  a  deaf  ear,  for  it  is  not  a  light  matter  that 
is  at  stake.  How  then  shall  he  determine  which  gods  are  the  stronger, 
his  own  or  those  that  preside  over  the  concerns  of  other  nations?  By 
comparing  the  known  works  of  his  own  gods  with  the  works  of  those 
others;  there  is  no  other  way.  Now,  when  we  make  this  comparison, 
we  are  not  drawn  towards  the  gods  of  any  other  nation.  Our  gods  are 
shown  by  their  works  to  be  the  strongest,  the  most  powerful.  The 
Christians  have  but  few  gods,  and  they  are  new  —  new,  and  not  strong, 
as  it  seems  to  us.  They  will  increase  in  number,  it  is  true,  for  this  has 
happened  with  all  gods,  but  that  time  is  far  away,  many  ages  and 
decades  cf  ages  away,  for  gods  multiply  slowly,  as  is  meet  for  beings  to 
whom  a  thousand  years  is  but  a  single  moment.  Our  own  gods  have 
been  born  millions  of  years  apart.  The  process  is  slow,  the  gathering 
of  strength  and  power  is  similarly  slow.  In  the  slow  lapse  of  the  ages 
the  steadily  accumulating  power  of  our  gods  has  at  last  become  prodigi 
ous.  We  have  a  thousand  proofs  of  this  in  the  colossal  character  of 
their  personal  acts  and  the  acts  of  ordinary  men  to  whom  they  have 
given  supernatural  qualities.  To  your  Samson  was  given  supernatural 
power,  and  when  he  broke  the  withes,  and  slew  the  thousands  with  the 
jawbone  of  an  ass,  and  carried  away  the  gates  of  the  city  upon  his 
shoulders,  you  were  amazed  —  and  also  awed,  for  you  recognized  the 
divine  source  of  his  strength.  But  it  could  not  profit  to  place  these 
things  before  your  Hindoo  congregation  and  invite  their  wonder;  for 
they  would  compare  them  with  the  deed  done  by  Hanuman,  when  out 
gods  infused  their  divine  strength  into  his  muscles;  and  they  would  be 


Following  the  Equator  135 

indifferent  to  them  —  as  you  saw.  In  the  old,  old  times,  ages  and  ages 
gone  by,  when  our  god  Rama  was  warring  with  the  demon  god  of 
Ceylon,  Rama  bethought  him  to  bridge  the  sea  and  connect  Ceylon  with 
India,  so  that  his  armies  might  pass  easily  over;  and  he  sent  his  general, 
Hanuman,  inspired  like  your  own  Samson  with  divine  strength,  to  bring 
the  materials  for  the  bridge.  In  two  days  Hanuman  strode  fifteen 
hundred  miles,  to  the  Himalayas,  and  took  upon  his  shoulder  a  range 
of  those  lofty  mountains  two  hundred  miles  long,  and  started  with  it 
toward  Ceylon.  It  was  in  the  night;  and,  as  he  passed  along  the  plain, 
the  people  of  Govardhun  heard  the  thunder  of  his  tread  and  felt  the 
earth  rocking  under  it,  and  they  ran  out,  and  there,  with  their  snowy 
summits  piled  to  heaven,  they  saw  the  Himalayas  passing  by.  And  as 
this  huge  continent  swept  along  overshadowing  the  earth,  upon  its  slopes 
they  discerned  the  twinkling  lights  of  a  thousand  sleeping  villages,  and 
it  was  as  if  the  constellations  were  filing  in  procession  through  the  sky. 
While  they  were  looking,  Hanuman  stumbled,  and  a  small  ridge  of  red 
sandstone  twenty  miles  long  was  jolted  loose  and  fell.  Half  of  its 
length  has  wasted  away  in  the  course  of  the  ages,  but  the  other  ten 
miles  of  it  remain  in  the  plain  by  Govardhun  to  this  day  as  proof  of  the 
might  of  the  inspiration  of  our  gods.  You  must  know,  yourself,  that 
Hanuman  could  not  have  carried  those  mountains  to  Ceylon  except  by 
the  strength  of  the  gods.  You  know  that  it  was  not  done  by  his  own 
strength,  therefore  you  know  that  it  was  done  by  the  strength  of  the 
gods,  just  as  you  know  that  Samson  carried  the  gates  by  the  divine 
strength  and  not  by  his  own.  I  think  you  must  concede  two  things: 
First,  That  in  carrying  the  gates  of  the  city  upon  his  shoulders,  Samson 
did  not  establish  the  superiority  of  his  gods  over  ours;  secondly,  That 
his  feat  is  not  supported  by  any  but  verbal  evidence,  while  Hanuman' s 
is  not  only  supported  by  verbal  evidence,  but  this  evidence  is  confirmed, 
established,  proven,  by  visible,  tangible  evidence,  which  is  the  strongest 
of  all  testimony.  We  have  the  sandstone  ridge,  and  while  it  remains 
we  cannot  doubt,  and  shall  not.  Have  you  the  gates?  '  " 


CHAPTER   XIII. 

The  timid  man  yearns  for  full  value  and  demands  a  tenth.    The  bold  man 
Strikes  for  double  value  and  compromises  on  par. 

— Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

ONE  is  sure  to  be  struck  by  the  liberal  way  in 
which  Australasia  spends  money  upon  public 
works  —  such  as  legislative  buildings,  town  halls, 
hospitals,  asylums,  parks,  and  botanical  gardens.  I 
should  say  that  where  minor  towns  in  America  spend 
a  hundred  dollars  on  the  town  hall  and  on  public 
parks  and  gardens,  the  like  towns  in  Australasia 
spend  a  thousand.  And  I  think  that  this  ratio  will 
hold  good  in  the  matter  of  hospitals,  also.  I  'have 
seen  a  costly  and  well-equipped,  and  architecturally 
handsome  hospital  in  an  Australian  village  of  fifteen 
hundred  inhabitants.  It  was  built  by  private  funds 
furnished  by  the  villagers  and  the  neighboring  plant 
ers,  and  its  running  expenses  were  drawn  from  the 
same  sources.  I  suppose  it  would  be  hard  to  match 
this  in  any  country.  This  village  was  about  to  close  a 
contract  for  lighting  the  streets  with  the  electric  light, 
when  I  was  there.  That  is  ahead  of  London.  Lon 
don  is  still  obscured  by  gas  —  gas  pretty  widely  scat 
tered,  too,  in  some  of  the  districts;  so  widely  indeed, 

(136) 


Following  the  Equator  137 

that  except  on  moonlight  nights  it  is  difficult  to  find 
the  gas  lamps. 

The  botanical  garden  of  Sydney  covers  thirty-eight 
acres,  beautifully  laid  out  and  rich  with  the  spoil  of 
all  the  lands  and  all  the  climes  of  the  world.  The 
garden  is  on  high  ground  in  the  middle  of  the  town, 
overlooking  the  great  harbor,  and  it  adjoins  the 
spacious  grounds  of  Government  House  —  fifty-six 
acres;  and  at  hand,  also,  is  a  recreation  ground  con 
taining  eighty-two  acres.  In  addition,  there  are  the 
zoological  gardens,  the  race-course,  and  the  great 
cricket-grounds  where  the  international  matches  are 
played.  Therefore  there  is  plenty  of  room  for  re 
poseful  lazying  and  lounging,  and  for  exercise  too, 
for  such  as  like  that  kind  of  work. 

There  are  four  specialties  attainable  in  the  way  of 
social  pleasure.  If  you  enter  your  name  on  the 
Visitor's  Book  at  Government  House  you  will  re 
ceive  an  invitation  to  the  next  ball  that  takes  place 
there,  if  nothing  can  be  proven  against  you.  And 
it  will  be  very  pleasant ;  for  you  will  see  everybody 
except  the  Governor,  and  add  a  number  of  acquaint 
ances  and  several  friends  to  your  list.  The  Gover 
nor  will  be  in  England.  He  always  is.  The  con 
tinent  has  four  or  five  governors,  and  I  do  not  know 
how  many  it  takes  to  govern  the  outlying  archipelago  ; 
but  anyway  you  will  not  see  them.  When  they  are 
appointed  they  come  out  from  England  and  get 
inaugurated,  and  give  a  ball,  and  help  pray  for  rain, 
and  get  aboard  ship  and  go  back  home.  And  so 


138  Following  the  Equator 

the  Lieutenant-Governor  has  to  do  all  the  work.  I 
was  in  Australasia  three  months  and  a  half,  and  saw 
only  one  Governor.  The  others  were  at  home. 

The  Australasian  Governor  would  not  be  so  rest 
less,  perhaps,  if  he  had  a  war,  or  a  veto,  or  some 
thing  like  that  to  call  for  his  reserve-energies,  but  he 
hasn't.  There  isn't  any  war,  and  there  isn't  any 
veto  in  his  hands.  And  so  there  is  really  little  or 
nothing  doing  in  his  line.  The  country  governs 
itself,  and  prefers  to  do  it ;  and  is  so  strenuous  about 
it  and  so  jealous  of  its  independence  that  it  grows 
restive  if  even  the  Imperial  Government  at  home 
proposes  to  help ;  and  so  the  Imperial  veto,  while  a 
fact,  is  yet  mainly  a  name. 

Thus  the  Governor's  functions  are  much  more 
limited  than  are  a  Governor's  functions  with  us. 
And  therefore  more  fatiguing.  He  is  the  apparent 
head  of  the  State,  he  is  the  real  head  of  Society. 
He  represents  culture,  refinement,  elevated  senti 
ment,  polite  life,  religion;  and  by  his  example  he 
propagates  these,  and  they  spread  and  flourish  and 
bear  fruit.  He  creates  the  fashion,  and  leads  it. 
His  ball  is  the  ball  of  balls,  and  his  countenance 
makes  the  horse-race  thrive. 

He  is  usually  a  lord,  and  this  is  well ;  for  his  posi 
tion  compels  him  to  lead  an  expensive  life,  and  an 
English  lord  is  generally  well  equipped  for  that. 

Another  of  Sydney's  social  pleasures  is  the  visit  to 
the  Admiralty  House;  which  is  nobly  situated  on 
high  ground  overlooking  the  water.  The  trim  boats 


Following  the  Equator  139 

of  the  service  convey  the  guests  thither;  and  there, 
or  on  board  the  flagship,  they  have  the  duplicate 
of  the  hospitalities  of  Government  House.  The 
Admiral  commanding  a  station  in  British  waters  is  a 
magnate  of  the  first  degree,  and  he  is  sumptuously 
housed,  as  becomes  the  dignity  of  his  office. 

Third  in  the  list  of  special  pleasures  is  the  tour  of 
the  harbor  in  a  fine  steam  pleasure  launch.  Your 
richer  friends  own  boats  of  this  kind,  and  they  will 
invite  you,  and  the  joys  of  the  trip  will  make  a  long 
day  seem  short. 

And  finally  comes  the  shark-fishing.  Sydney 
Harbor  is  populous  with  the  finest  breeds  of  man- 
eating  sharks  in  the  world.  Some  people  make  their 
living  catching  them;  for  the  Government  pays  a 
cash  bounty  on  them.  The  larger  the  shark  the 
larger  the  bounty,  and  some  of  the  sharks  are  twenty 
feet  long.  You  not  only  get  the  bounty,  but  every 
thing  that  is  in  the  shark  belongs  to  you.  Some 
times  the  contents  are  quite  valuable. 

The  shark  is  the  swiftest  fish  that  swims.  The 
speed  of  the  fastest  steamer  afloat  is  poor  compared 
to  his.  And  he  is  a  great  gad-about,  and  roams  far 
and  wide  in  the  oceans,  and  visits  the  shores  of  all  of 
them,  ultimately,  in  the  course  of  his  restless  excur 
sions.  I  have  a  tale  to  tell  now,  which  has  not  as 
yet  been  in  print.  In  1870  a  young  stranger  arrived 
in  Sydney,  and  set  about  finding  something  to  do ; 
but  he  knew  no  one,  and  brought  no  recommenda 
tions,  and  the  result  was  that  he  got  no  employment. 


140  Following  the  Equator 

He  had  aimed  high,  at  first,  but  as  time  and  his 
money  wasted  away  he  grew  less  and  less  exacting, 
until  at  last  he  was  willing  to  serve  in  the  humblest 
capacities  if  so  he  might  get  bread  and  shelter.  But 
tuck  was  still  against  him ;  he  could  find  no  opening 
of  any  sort.  Finally  his  money  was  all  gone.  He 
walked  the  streets  all  day,  thinking;  he  walked  them 
all  night,  thinking,  thinking,  and  growing  hungrier 
and  hungrier.  At  dawn  he  found  himself  well  away 
from  the  town  and  drifting  aimlessly  along  the  harbor 
shore.  As  he  was  passing  by  a  nodding  shark-fisher 
the  man  looked  up  and  said : 

"  Say,  young  fellow,   take  my  line  a  spell,  and 
change  my  luck  for  me." 

81  How  do  you  know  I  won't  make  it  worse?  " 
"  Because  you  can't.     It  has  been  at  its  worst  all 
night.     If  you  can't  change  it,  no  harm's  done;   if 
you   do   change   it,    it's  for  the  better,   of  course. 
Come." 

"All  right,  what  will  you  give?  " 
"  I'll  give  you  the  shark,  if  you  catch  one." 
"And  I  will  eat  it,  bones  and  all.     Give  me  the 
line." 

'*  Here  you  are.  I  will  get  away,  now,  for  awhile, 
so  that  my  luck  won't  spoil  yours;  for  many  and 
many  a  time  I've  noticed  that  if  —  there,  pull  in,  pull 
in,  man,  you've  got  a  bite !  /  knew  how  it  would 
be.  Why,  I  knew  you  for  a  born  son  of  luck  the 
minute  I  saw  you.  All  right  —  he's  landed." 
It  was  an  unusually  large  shark — "a  full  nine- 


Following  the  Equator  141 

teen-footer,"  the  fisherman  said,  as  he  laid  the  crea 
ture  open  with  his  knife. 

"  Now  you  rob  him,  young  man,  while  I  step  to 
my  hamper  for  a  fresh  bait.  There's  generally 
something  in  them  worth  going  for.  You've 
changed  my  luck,  you  see.  But,  my  goodness,  I 
hope  you  haven't  changed  your  own." 

"  Oh,  it  wouldn't  matter;  don't  worry  about  that. 
Get  your  bait.  I'll  rob  him." 

When  the  fisherman  got  back  the  young  man  had 
just  finished  washing  his  hands  in  the  bay  and  was 
starting  away. 

'  *  What !  you  are  not  going  ?  ' ' 

"Yes.     Good-bye." 

11  But  what  about  your  shark?  " 

"  The  shark?     Why,  what  use  is  he  to  me?  " 

"  What  use  is  he?  I  like  that.  Don't  you  know 
that  we  can  go  and  report  him  to  Government,  and 
you'll  get  a  clean  solid  eighty  shillings  bounty? 
Hard  cash,  you  know.  What  do  you  think  about  it 
now?1' 

"  Oh,  well,  you  can  collect  it." 

"And  keep  it?     Is  that  what  you  mean?  " 

"Yes." 

"Well,  this  is  odd.  You're  one  of  those  sort 
they  call  eccentrics,  I  judge.  The  saying  is,  you 
mustn't  judge  a  man  by  his  clothes,  and  I'm  believ 
ing  it  now.  Why  yours  are  looking  just  ratty,  don't 
you  know;  and  yet  you  must  be  rich." 

"lam." 


142  Following  the  Equator 

The  young  man  walked  slowly  back  to  the  town, 
deeply  musing  as  he  went.  He  halted  a  moment  in 
front  of  the  best  restaurant,  then  glanced  at  his 
clothes  and  passed  on,  and  got  his  breakfast  at  a 
"stand-up."  There  was  a  good  deal  of  it,  and  it 
cost  five  shillings.  He  tendered  a  sovereign,  got 
his  change,  glanced  at  his  silver,  muttered  to  him 
self,  "  There  isn't  enough  to  buy  clothes  with,"  and 
went  his  way. 

At  half-past  nine  the  richest  wool-broker  in  Sydney 
was  sitting  in  his  morning-room  at  home,  settling 
his  breakfast  with  the  morning  paper.  A  servant 
put  his  head  in  and  said : 

"There's  a  sundowner  at  the  door  wants  to  see 
you,  sir." 

"  What  do  you  bring  that  kind  of  a  message  here 
for?  Send  him  about  his  business." 

"  He  won't  go,  sir.     I've  tried." 

"He  won't  go?  That's  —  why,  that's  unusual. 
He's  one  of  two  things,  then:  he's  a  remarkable 
person,  or  he's  crazy.  Is  he  crazy?  " 

"No,  sir.     He  don't  look  it." 

"Then  he's  remarkable.  What  does  he  say  he 
wants  ?  ' ' 

"  He  won't  tell,  sir;  only  says  it's  very  important." 

"And  won't  go.     Does  he  say  he  won't  go?  " 

"  Says  he'll  stand  there  till  he  sees  you,  sir,  if  it's 
all  day." 

"And  yet  isn't  crazy.     Show  him  up." 

The  sundowner  was  shown  in.     The  broker  said 


Following  the  Equator  143 

to  himself,  "No,  he's  not  crazy;  that  is  easy  to 
see;  so  he  must  be  the  other  thing." 

Then  aloud,  "Well,  my  good  fellow,  be  quick  about 
it;  don't  waste  any  words;  what  is  it  you  want?  " 

"  I  want  to  borrow  a  hundred  thousand  pounds." 

"Scott!  (It's  a  mistake;  he  is  crazy.  .  .  .  No 
—  he  can't  be  —  not  with  that  eye. )  Why,  you  take 
my  breath  away.  Come,  who  are  you?  " 

"  Nobody  that  you  know." 

"  What  is  your  name?  " 

"Cecil  Rhodes." 

"  No,  I  don't  remember  hearing  the  name  before. 
Now  then  —  just  for  curiosity's  sake  —  what  has 
sent  you  to  me  on  this  extraordinary  errand?  " 

"The  intention  to  make  a  hundred  thousand 
pounds  for  you  and.  as  much  for  myself  within  the 
next  sixty  days." 

"Well,  well,  well.  It  is  the  most  extraordinary 
idea  that  I  —  sit  down  —  you  interest  me.  And 
somehow  you  —  well,  you  fascinate  me,  I  think  that 
that  is  about  the  word.  And  it  isn't  your  proposi 
tion —  no,  that  doesn't  fascinate  me;  it's  something 
else,  I  don't  quite  know  what ;  something  that's  born 
in  you  and  oozes  out  of  you,  I  suppose.  Now  then 
• — just  for  curiosity's  sake  again,  nothing  more:  as 
I  understand  it,  it  is  your  desire  to  bor — " 

"  I  said  intention." 

"  Pardon,  so  you  did.  I  thought  it  was  an  un- 
heedful  use  of  the  word  —  an  unheedful  valuing  of 
its  strength,  you  know." 


144  Following  the  Equator 

"  I  knew  its  strength." 

"Well,  I  must  say  —  but  look  here,  let  me  walk 
the  floor  a  little,  my  mind  is  getting  into  a  sort  of 
whirl,  though  you  don't  seem  disturbed  any. 
(Plainly  this  young  fellow  isn't  crazy;  but  as  to 
his  being  remarkable  —  well,  really  he  amounts  to 
that,  and  something  over.)  Now  then,  I  believe 
I  am  beyond  the  reach  of  further  astonishment. 
Strike,  and  spare  not.  What  is  your  scheme?  " 

*  *  To  buy  the  wool  crop  —  deliverable  in  sixty  days . ' ' 

"  What,  the  whole  vi  it?" 

"The  whole  of  it." 

14  No,  I  was  not  quite  out  of  the  reach  of  sur 
prises,  after  all.  Why,  how  you  talk.  Do  you 
know  what  our  crop  is  going  to  foot  up?  " 

"  Two  and  a  half  million  sterling — maybe  a  little 
more." 

"  Well,  you've  got  your  statistics  right,  any  way. 
Now,  then,  do  you  know  what  the  margins  would 
foot  up,  to  buy  it  at  sixty  days?  " 

"The  hundred  thousand  pounds  I  came  here  to 
get." 

"  Right,  once  more.  Well,  dear  me;  just  to  see 
what  would  happen,  I  wish  you  had  the  money. 
And  if  you  had  it,  what  would  you  do  with  it?  " 

"  I  shall  make  two  hundred  thousand  pounds  out 
of  it  in  sixty  days." 

1 '  You  mean,  of  course,  that  you  might  make  it  if — ' ' 

"I  said  'shall'." 

*'  Yes,  by  George,  you  did  say  *  shall '  !     You  are 


Following  the  Equator  145 

the  most  definite  devil  I  ever  saw,  in  the  matter  of 
language.  Dear,  dear,  dear,  look  here !  Definite 
speech  means  clarity  of  mind.  Upon  my  word  I 
believe  you've  got  what  you  believe  to  be  a  rational 
reason  for  venturing  into  this  house,  an  entire 
stranger,  on  this  wild  scheme  of  buying  the  wool 
crop  of  an  entire  colony  on  speculation.  Bring  it 
out  —  I  am  prepared  —  acclimatized,  if  I  may  use 
the  word.  Why  would  you  buy  the  crop,  and  why 
would  you  make  that  sum  out  of  it?  That  is  to  say, 
what  makes  you  think  you — " 

"  I  don't  think—  I  know." 

"  Definite  again.     How  do  you  know?  " 

"Because  France  has  declared  war  against  Ger 
many,  and  wool  has  gone  up  fourteen  per  cent,  in 
London  and  is  still  rising." 

"  Oh,  in-deed?  Now  then,  I've  got  you  !  Such 
a  thunderbolt  as  you  have  just  let  fly  ought  to  have 
made  me  jump  out  of  my  chair,  but  it  didn't  stir  me 
the  least  little  bit,  you  see.  And  for  a  very  simple 
reason:  I  have  read  the  morning  paper.  You  can 
look  at  it  if  you  want  to.  The  fastest  ship  in  the 
service  arrived  at  eleven  o'clock  last  night,  fifty 
days  out  from  London.  All  her  news  is  printed 
here.  There  are  no  war-clouds  anywhere;  and  as 
for  wool,  why,  it  is  the  low-spiritedest  commodity 
in  the  English  market.  It  is  your  turn  to  jump, 
now.  .  .  .  Well,  why  don't  you  jump?  Why  do 
you  sit  there  in  that  placid  fashion,  when — " 

"  Because  I  have  later  news." 
10* 


146  Following  the  Equator 

"  Later  news?  Oh,  come  —  later  news  than  fifty 
days,  brought  steaming  hot  from  London  by  the — " 

"  My  news  is  only  ten  days  old." 

"  Oh,  Wlun-chattsen,  hear  the  maniac  talk! 
Where  did  you  get  it?  " 

"  Got  it  out  of  a  shark." 

"  Oh,  oh,  oh,  this  is  too  much!  Frcnt!  call  the 
police  —  bring  the  gun  —  raise  the  town  !  All  the 
asylums  in  Christendom  have  broken  loose  in  the 
single  person  of — " 

"  Sit  down  !  And  collect  yourself.  Where  is  the 
use  in  getting  excited?  Am  I  excited?  There  is 
nothing  to  get  excited  about.  When  I  make  a  state 
ment  which  I  cannot  prove,  it  will  be  time  enough 
for  you  to  begin  to  offer  hospitality  to  damaging 
fancies  about  me  and  my  sanity." 

"  Oh,  a  thousand,  thousand  pardons  !  I  ought  to 
be  ashamed  of  myself,  and  I  am  ashamed  of  myself 
for  thinking  that  a  little  bit  of  a  circumstance  like 
sending  a  shark  to  England  to  fetch  back  a  market 
report — " 

"  What  does  your  middle  initial  stand  for,  sir?  " 

"Andrew.     What  are  you  writing?  " 

"  Wait  a  moment.  Proof  about  the  shark  —  and 
another  matter.  Only  ten  lines.  There  —  now  it  is 
done.  Sign  it." 

"  Many  thanks  —  many.  Let  me  see;  it  says  — 
it  says  —  oh,  come,  this  is  interesting  !  Why  —  why 
—  look  here!  prove  what  you  say  here,  and  I'll  put 
up  the  money,  and  double  as  much,  if  necessary,  and 


Following  the  Equator  147 

divide  the  winnings  with  you,  half  and  half.  There, 
now  —  I've  signed;  make  your  promise  good  if  you 
can.  Show  me  a  copy  of  the  London  Times  only 
ten  days  old." 

"Here  it  is — and  with  it  these  buttons  and  a  mem 
orandum  book  that  belonged  to  the  man  the  shark 
swallowed.  Swallowed  him  in  the  Thames,  without 
a  doubt ;  for  you  will  notice  that  the  last  entry  in 
the  book  is  dated  '  London/  and  is  of  the  same  date 
as  the  Times,  and  says  ^er  confequenij  bet  JtrtegeSerflcU 
rung,  retfe  icfy  fyeute  nacfy  £)eutf$lanb  a&,  auf  baft  idjj  mem 
Seben  auf  bem  Slltar  rnetneS  SanbeS  legen  mag' — as  clean 
native  German  as  anybody  can  put  upon  paper, 
and  means  that  in  consequence  of  the  declaration  of 
war,  this  loyal  soul  is  leaving  for  home  to-day,  to 
fight.  And  he  did  leave,  too,  but  the  shark  had 
him  before  the  day  was  done,  poor  fellow." 

"And  a  pity,  too.  But  there  are  times  for  mourn 
ing,  and  we  will  attend  to  this  case  further  on ;  other 
matters  are  pressing,  now.  I  will  go  down  and  set 
the  machinery  in  motion  in  a  quiet  way  and  buy  the 
crop.  It  will  cheer  the  drooping  spirits  of  the  boys, 
in  a  transitory  way.  Everything  is  transitory  in  this 
world.  Sixty  days  hence,  when  they  are  called  to 
deliver  the  goods,  they  will  think  they've  been  struck 
by  lightning.  But  there  is  a  time  for  mourning,  and 
we  will  attend  to  that  case  along  with  the  other  one. 
Come  along,  I'll  take  you  to  my  tailor.  What  did 
you  say  your  name  is?  " 

"Cecil  Rhodes." 


148  Following  the  Equator 

"  It  is  hard  to  remember.  However,  I  think  you 
will  make  it  easier  by  and  by,  if  you  live.  There 
are  three  kinds  of  people  —  Commonplace  Men, 
Remarkable  Men,  and  Lunatics.  I'll  classify  you 
with  the  Remarkables,  and  take  the  chances." 

The  deal  went  through,  and  secured  to  the  young 
stranger  the  first  fortune  he  ever  pocketed. 

The  people  of  Sydney  ought  to  be  afraid  of  the 
sharks,  but  for  some  reason  they  do  not  seem  to 
be.  On  Saturdays  the  young  men  go  out  in  their 
boats,  and  sometimes  the  water  is  fairly  covered  with 
the  little  sails.  A  boat  upsets  now  and  then,  by 
accident,  a  result  of  tumultuous  skylarking;  some 
times  the  boys  upset  their  boat  for  fun  —  such  as  it 
is  —  with  sharks  visibly  waiting  around  for  just  such 
an  occurrence.  The  young  fellows  scramble  aboard 
whole  —  sometimes  —  not  always.  Tragedies  have 
happened  more  than  once.  While  I  was  in  Sydney 
it  was  reported  that  a  boy  fell  out  of  a  boat  in  the 
mouth  of  the  Paramatta  river  and  screamed  for  help 
and  a  boy  jumped  overboard  from  another  boat  to 
save  him  from  the  assembling  sharks ;  but  the  sharks 
made  swift  work  with  the  lives  of  both. 

The  government  pays  a  bounty  for  the  shark ;  to 
get  the  bounty  the  fishermen  bait  the  hook  or  the 
seine  with  agreeable  mutton ;  the  news  spreads  and 
the  sharks  come  from  all  over  the  Pacific  Ocean  to 
get  the  free  board.  In  time  the  shark  culture  will  be 
one  of  the  most  successful  things  in  the  colony. 


CHAPTER    XIV. 

We  can  secure  other  people's  approval,  if  we  do  right  and  try  hard ;  but 
our  own  is  worth  a  hundred  of  it,  and  no  way  has  been  found  out  of  securing 
that.  —  PudcTnhead  Wilson1  New  Calendar. 

MY  health  had  broken  down  in  New  York  in 
May;  it  had  remained  in  a  doubtful  but  fairish 
condition  during  a  succeeding  period  of  82  days;  it 
broke  again  on  the  Pacific.  It  broke  again  in  Syd 
ney,  but  not  until  after  I  had  had  a  good  outing, 
and  had  also  filled  my  lecture  engagements.  This 
latest  break  lost  me  the  chance  of  seeing  Queens 
land.  In  the  circumstances,  to  go  north  toward 
hotter  weather  was  not  advisable. 

So  we  moved  south  with  a  westward  slant,  17 
hours  by  rail  to  the  capital  of  the  colony  of  Vic 
toria,  Melbourne  —  that  juvenile  city  of  sixty  years, 
and  half  a  million  inhabitants.  On  the  map  the  dis 
tance  looked  small;  but  that  is  a  trouble  with  all 
divisions  of  distance  in  such  a  vast  country  as  Aus 
tralia.  The  colony  of  Victoria  itself  looks  small  on 
the  map  —  looks  like  a  county,  in  fact  —  yet  it  is 
about  as  large  as  England,  Scotland,  and  Wales 
combined.  Or,  to  get  another  focus  upon  it,  it  is 
just  80  times  as  large  as  the  State  of  Rhode  Island, 
and  one- third  as  large  as  the  State  of  Texas. 

(H9) 


150  Following  the  Equator 

Outside  of  Melbourne,  Victoria  seems  to  be  owned 
by  a  handful  of  squatters,  each  with  a  Rhode  Island 
for  a  sheep  farm.  That  is  the  impression  which  one 
gathers  from  common  talk,  yet  the  wool  industry  of 
Victoria  is  by  no  means  so  great  as  that  of  New 
South  Wales.  The  climate  of  Victoria  is  favorable 
to  other  great  industries  —  among  others,  wheat- 
growing  and  the  making  of  wine. 

We  took  the  train  at  Sydney  at  about  four  in  the 
afternoon.  It  was  American  in  one  way,  for  we 
had  a  most  rational  sleeping  car ;  also  the  car  was 
clean  and  fine  and  new — nothing  about  it  to  sug 
gest  the  rolling  stock  of  the  continent  of  Europe. 
But  our  baggage  was  weighed,  and  extra  weight 
charged  for.  That  was  continental.  Continental 
and  troublesome.  Any  detail  of  railroading  that  is 
not  troublesome  cannot  honorably  be  described  as 
continental. 

The  tickets  were  round-trip  ones  —  to  Melbourne, 
and  clear  to  Adelaide  in  South  Australia,  and  then 
all  the  way  back  to  Sydney.  Twelve  hundred  more 
miles  than  we  really  expected  to  make ;  but  then  as 
the  round  trip  wouldn't  cost  much  more  than  the 
single  trip,  it  seemed  well  enough  to  buy  as  many 
miles  as  one  could  afford,  even  if  one  was  not  likely 
to  need  them.  A  human  being  has  a  natural  desire 
to  have  more  of  a  good  thing  than  he  needs. 

Now  comes  a  singular  thing:  the  oddest  thing, 
the  strangest  thing,  the  most  baffling  and  unaccount 
able  marvel  that  Australasia  can  show.  At  the 


Following  the  Equator  151 

frontier  between  New  South  Wales  and  Victoria  our 
multitude  of  passengers  were  routed  out  of  their 
snug  beds  by  lantern-light  in  the  morning  in  the 
biting  cold  of  a  high  altitude  to  change  cars  on  a 
road  that  has  no  break  in  it  from  Sydney  to  Mel 
bourne  !  Think  of  the  paralysis  of  intellect  that 
gave  that  idea  birth ;  imagine  the  bowlder  it  emerged 
from  on  some  petrified  legislator's  shoulders. 

It  is  a  narrow-gauge  road  to  the  frontier,  and  a 
broader  gauge  thence  to  Melbourne.  The  two 
governments  were  the  builders  of  the  road  and  are 
the  owners  of  it.  One  or  two  reasons  are  given  for 
this  curious  state  of  things.  One  is,  that  it  repre 
sents  the  jealousy  existing  between  the  colonies  — 
the  two  most  important  colonies  of  Australasia. 
What  the  other  one  is,  I  have  forgotten.  But  it  is 
of  no  consequence.  It  could  be  but  another  effort 
to  explain  the  inexplicable. 

All  passengers  fret  at  the  double-gauge ;  all  ship 
pers  of  freight  must  of  course  fret  at  it ;  unnecessary 
expense,  delay,  and  annoyance  are  imposed  upon 
everybody  concerned,  and  no  one  is  benefited. 

Each  Australian  colony  fences  itself  off  from  its 
neighbor  with  a  custom-house.  Personally,  I  have 
no  objection,  but  it  must  be  a  good  deal  of  incon 
venience  to  the  people.  We  have  something  re 
sembling  it  here  and  there  in  America,  but  it  goes 
by  another  name.  The  large  empire  of  the  Pacific 
coast  requires  a  world  of  iron  machinery,  and  could 
manufacture  it  economically  on  the  spot  if  the 


152  Following  the  Equator 

imposts  on  foreign  iron  were  removed.  But  they 
are  not.  Protection  to  Pennsylvania  and  Alabama 
forbids  it.  The  result  to  the  Pacific  coast  is  the 
same  as  if  there  were  several  rows  of  custom-fences 
between  the  coast  and  the  East.  Iron  carted 
across  the  American  continent  at  luxurious  railway 
rates  would  be  valuable  enough  to  be  coined  when  it 
arrived. 

We  changed  cars.  This  was  at  Albury.  And  it 
was  there,  I  think,  that  the  growing  day  and  the 
early  sun  exposed  the  distant  range  called  the  Blue 
Mountains.  Accurately  named.  "My  word!"  as 
the  Australians  say,  but  it  was  a  stunning  color, 
that  blue.  Deep,  strong,  rich,  exquisite;  towering 
and  majestic  masses  of  blue  —  a  softly  luminous 
blue,  a  smouldering  blue,  as  if  vaguely  lit  by  fires 
within.  It  extinguished  the  blue  of  the  sky  —  made 
it  pallid  and  unwholesome,  whitey  and  washed-out. 
A  wonderful  color  —  just  divine. 

A  resident  told  me  that  those  were  not  moun 
tains;  he  said  they  were  rabbit-piles.  And  ex 
plained  that  long  exposure  and  the  over-ripe  condi 
tion  of  the  rabbits  was  what  made  them  look  so 
blue.  This  man  may  have  been  right,  but  much 
reading  of  books  of  travel  has  made  me  distrustful 
of  gratis  information  furnished  by  unofficial  residents 
of  a  country.  The  facts  which  such  people  give  to 
travelers  are  usually  erroneous,  and  often  intemper- 
ately  so.  The  rabbit-plague  has  indeed  been  very 
bad  in  Australia,  and  it  could  account  for  one 


Following  the  Equator  153 

mountain,  but  not  for  a  mountain  range,  it  seems 
to  me.  It  is  too  large  an  order. 

We  breakfasted  at  the  station.  A  good  break 
fast,  except  the  coffee;  and  cheap.  The  govern 
ment  establishes  the  prices  and  placards  them.  The 
waiters  were  men,  I  think;  but  that  is  not  usual  in 
Australasia.  The  usual  thing  is  to  have  girls.  No, 
not  girls,  young  ladies  —  generally  duchesses. 
Dress?  They  would  attract  attention  at  any  royal 
leve'e  in  Europe.  Even  empresses  and  queens  do 
not  dress  as  they  do.  Not  that  they  could  not 
afford  it,  perhaps,  but  they  would  not  know  how. 

All  the  pleasant  morning  we  slid  smoothly  along 
over  the  plains,  through  thin  —  not  thick  —  forests 
of  great  melancholy  gum  trees,  with  trunks  rugged 
with  curled  sheets  of  flaking  bark  —  erysipelas  con 
valescents,  so  to  speak,  shedding  their  dead  skins. 
And  all  along  were  tiny  cabins,  built  sometimes  of 
wood,  sometimes  of  gray-blue  corrugated  iron;  and 
the  doorsteps  and  fences  were  clogged  with  children 
—  rugged  little  simply-clad  chaps  that  looked  as  if 
they  had  been  imported  from  the  banks  of  the 
Mississippi  without  breaking  bulk. 

And  there  were  little  villages,  with  neat  stations 
well  placarded  with  showy  advertisements  —  mainly 
of  almost  too  self-righteous  brands  of  "  sheep-dip," 
if  that  is  the  name  —  and  I  think  it  is.  It  is  a  stuff 
like  tar,  and  is  dabbed  on  to  places  where  the 
shearer  clips  a  piece  out  of  the  sheep.  It  bars  out 
the  flies,  and  has  healing  properties,  and  a  nip  to  it 


154  Following  the  Equator 

which  makes  the  sheep  skip  like  the  cattle  on  a 
thousand  hills.  It  is  not  good  to  eat.  That  is,  it 
is  not  good  to  eat  except  when  mixed  with  railroad 
coffee.  It  improves  railroad  coffee.  Without  it 
railroad  coffee  is  too  vague.  But  with  it,  it  is  quite 
assertive  and  enthusiastic.  By  itself,  railroad  coffee 
is  too  passive ;  but  sheep-dip  makes  it  wake  up  and 
get  down  to  business.  I  wonder  where  they  get 
railroad  coffee? 

We  saw  birds,  but  not  a  kangaroo,  not  an  emu, 
not  an  ornithorhyncus,  not  a  lecturer,  not  a  native. 
Indeed,  the  land  seemed  quite  destitute  of  game. 
But  I  have  misused  the  word  native.  In  Australia 
it  is  applied  to  Australian-born  whites  only.  I 
should  have  said  that  we  saw  no  Aboriginals  —  no 
"  blackfellows."  And  to  this  day  I  have  never 
seen  one.  In  the  great  museums  you  will  find  all 
the  other  curiosities,  but  in  the  curio  of  chiefest 
interest  to  the  stranger  all  of  them  are  lacking.  We 
have  at  home  an  abundance  of  museums,  and  not  an 
American  Indian  in  them.  It  is  clearly  an  ab 
surdity,  but  it  never  strqck  me  before. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

Truth  is  stranger  than  fiftion  —  to  some  people,  but  I  am  measurably  familiar 
with  it.  —  Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

Truth  is  stranger  than  fiction,  but  it  is  because  Fiftion  is  obliged  to  stick  to 
possibilities ;  Truth  isn't.  —  Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

THE  air  was  balmy  and  delicious,  the  sunshine 
radiant;  it  was  a  charming  excursion.  In  the 
course  of  it  we  came  to  a  town  whose  odd  name  was 
famous  all  over  the  world  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago 
—  Wagga-Wagga.  This  was  because  the  Tichborne 
Claimant  had  kept  a  butcher-shop  there.  It  was 
out  of  the  midst  of  his  humble  collection  of  sausages 
and  tripe  that  he  soared  up  into  the  zenith  of 
notoriety  and  hung  there  in  the  wastes  of  space  a 
time,  with  the  telescopes  of  all  nations  leveled  at 
him  in  unappeasable  curiosity  —  curiosity  as  to  which 
of  the  two  long-missing  persons  he  was :  Arthur 
Orton,  the  mislaid  roustabout  of  Wapping,  or  Sir 
Roger  Tichborne,  the  lost  heir  of  a  name  and  estates 
as  old  as  English  history.  We  all  know  now,  but 
not  a  dozen  people  knew  then ;  and  the  dozen  kept 
the  mystery  to  themselves  and  allowed  the  most 
intricate  and  fascinating  and  marvelous  real-life 
romance  that  has  ever  been  played  upon  the  world's 

(155) 


156  Following  the  Equator 

stage  to  unfold  itself  serenely,  act  by  act,  in  a 
British  court,  by  the  long  and  laborious  processes  of 
judicial  development. 

When  we  recall  the  details  of  that  great  romance 
we  marvel  to  see  what  daring  chances  truth  may 
freely  take  in  constructing  a  tale,  as  compared  with 
the  poor  little  conservative  risks  permitted  to  fiction. 
The  fiction-artist  could  achieve  no  success  with  the 
materials  of  this  splendid  Tichborne  romance.  He 
would  have  to  drop  out  the  chief  characters;  the 
public  would  say  such  people  are  impossible.  He 
would  have  to  drop  out  a  number  of  the  most 
picturesque  incidents;  the  public  would  say  such 
things  could  never  happen.  And  yet  the  chief  char 
acters  did  exist,  and  the  incidents  did  happen. 

It  cost  the  Tichborne  estates  $400,000  to  unmask 
the  Claimant  and  drive  him  out ;  and  even  after  the 
exposure  multitudes  of  Englishmen  still  believed  in 
him.  It  cost  the  British  Government  another 
$400,000  to  convict  him  of  perjury;  and  after  the 
conviction  the  same  old  multitudes  still  believed  in 
him ;  and  among  these  believers  were  many  educated 
and  intelligent  men ;  and  some  of  them  had  person 
ally  known  the  real  Sir  Roger.  The  Claimant  was 
sentenced  to  14  years'  imprisonment.  When  he 
got  out  of  prison  he  went  to  New  York  and  kept  a 
whisky  saloon  in  the  Bowery  for  a  time,  then  disap 
peared  from  view. 

He  always  claimed  to  be  Sir  Roger  Tichborne 
until  death  called  for  him.  This  was  but  a  few 


Following  the  Equator  157 

months  ago  —  not  very  much  short  of  a  generation 
since  he  left  Wagga-Wagga  to  go  and  possess  him 
self  of  his  estates.  On  his  deathbed  he  yielded  up 
his  secret,  and  confessed  in  writing  that  he  was  only 
Arthur  Orton  of  Wapping,  able  seaman  and  butcher 
—  that  and  nothing  more.  But  it  is  scarcely  to  be 
doubted  that  there  are  people  whom  even  his  dying 
confession  will  not  convince.  The  old  habit  of 
assimilating  incredibilities  must  have  made  strong 
food  a  necessity  in  their  case;  a  weaker  article 
would  probably  disagree  with  them. 

I  was  in  London  when  the  Claimant  stood  his  trial 
for  perjury.  I  attended  one  of  his  showy  evenings 
in  the  sumptuous  quarters  provided  for  him  from 
the  purses  of  his  adherents  and  well-wishers.  He 
was  in  evening  dress,  and  I  thought  him  a  rather 
fine  and  stately  creature.  There  were  about  twenty- 
five  gentlemen  present;  educated  men,  men  moving 
in  good  society,  none  of  them  commonplace ;  some 
of  them  were  men  of  distinction,  none  of  them  were 
obscurities.  They  were  his  cordial  friends  and  ad 
mirers.  It  was  "  S'r  Roger,"  always  "  S'r  Roger," 
on  all  hands;  no  one  withheld  the  title,  all  turned  it 
from  the  tongue  with  unction,  and  as  if  it  tasted 
good. 

For  many  years  I  had  had  a  mystery  in  stock. 
Melbourne,  and  only  Melbourne,  could  unriddle  it 
for  me.  In  1873  I  arrived  in  London  with  my  wife 
and  young  child,  and  presently  received  a  note  from 
Naples  signed  by  a  name  not  familiar  to  me.  It 


158  Following  the  Equator 

was  not  Bascom,  and  it  was  not  Henry;  but  I  will 
call  it  Henry  Bascom  for  convenience's  sake.  This 
note,  of  about  six  lines,  was  written  on  a  strip  of 
white  paper  whose  end-edges  were  ragged.  I  came 
to  be  familiar  with  those  strips  in  later  years.  Their 
size  and  pattern  were  always  the  same.  Their  con 
tents  were  usually  to  the  same  effect :  would  I  and 
mine  come  to  the  writer's  country-place  in  England 
on  such  and  such  a  date,  by  such  and  such  a  train, 
and  stay  twelve  days  and  depart  by  such  and  such  a 
train  at  the  end  of  the  specified  time  ?  A  carriage 
would  meet  us  at  the  station. 

These  invitations  were  always  for  a  long  time 
ahead;  if  we  were  in  Europe,  three  months  ahead; 
if  we  were  in  America,  six  to  twelve  months  ahead. 
They  always  named  the  exact  date  and  train  for  the 
beginning  and  also  for  the  end  of  the  visit. 

This  first  note  invited  us  for  a  date  three  months 
in  the  future.  It  asked  us  to  arrive  by  the  4.10 
P.  M.  train  from  London,  August  6th.  The  carriage 
would  be  waiting.  The  carriage  would  take  us  away 
seven  days  later — train  specified.  And  there  were 
these  words:  "  Speak  to  Tom  Hughes." 

I  showed  the  note  to  the  author  of  ' '  Tom  Brown 
at  Rugby,"  and  he  said: 

"Accept,  and  be  thankful." 

He  described  Mr.  Bascom  as  being  a  man  of 
genius,  a  man  of  fine  attainments,  a  choice  man  in 
every  way,  a  rare  and  beautiful  character.  He  said 
that  Bascom  Hall  was  a  particularly  fine  example  of 


Following  the  Equator  159 

the  stately  manorial  mansion  of  Elizabeth's  days, 
and  that  it  was  a  house  worth  going  a  long  way  to 
see  —  like  Knowle;  that  Mr.  B,  was  of  a  social  dis 
position,  liked  the  company  of  agreeable  people, 
and  always  had  samples  of  the  sort  coming  and 
going. 

We  paid  the  visit.  We  paid  others,  in  later  years 
—  the  last  one  in  1879.  Soon  after  that  Mr.  Bascom 
started  on  a  voyage  around  the  world  in  a  steam 
yacht  —  a  long  and  leisurely  trip,  for  he  was  making 
collections,  in  all  lands,  of  birds,  butterflies,  and 
such  things. 

The  day  that  President  Garfield  was  shot  by  the 
assassin  Guiteau,  we  were  at  a  little  watering  place 
on  Long  Island  Sound ;  and  in  the  mail  matter  of 
that  day  came  a  letter  with  the  Melbourne  postmark 
on  it.  It  was  for  my  wife,  but  I  recognized  Mr. 
Bascom's  handwriting  on  the  envelope,  and  opened 
it.  It  was  the  usual  note  —  as  to  paucity  of  lines  — 
and  was  written  on  the  customary  strip  of  paper ; 
but  there  was  nothing  usual  about  the  contents. 
The  note  informed  my  wife  that  if  it  would  be  any 
assuagement  of  her  grief  to  know  that  her  husband's 
lecture-tour  in  Australia  was  a  satisfactory  venture 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end,  he,  the  writer,  could 
testify  that  such  was  the  case;  also,  that  her  hus 
band's  untimely  death  had  been  mourned  by  all 
classes,  as  she  would  already  know  by  the  press 
telegrams,  long  before  the  reception  of  this  note; 
that  the  funeral  was  attended  by  the  officials  of  the 


160  Following  the  Equator 

colonial  and  city  governments ;  and  that  while  he, 
the  writer,  her  friend  and  mine,  had  not  reached 
Melbourne  in  time  to  see  the  body,  he  had  at  least 
had  the  sad  privilege  of  acting  as  one  of  the  pall 
bearers.  Signed,  "  Henry  Bascom." 

My  first  thought  was,  why  didn't  he  have  the 
coffin  opened?  He  would  have  seen  that  the  corpse 
was  an  impostor,  and  he  could  have  gone  right 
ahead  and  dried  up  the  most  of  those  tears,  and  com 
forted  those  sorrowing  governments,  and  sold  the 
remains  and  sent  me  the  money. 

I  did  nothing  about  the  matter.  I  had  set  the 
law  after  living  lecture-doubles  of  mine  a  couple  of 
times  in  America,  and  the  law  had  not  been  able  to 
catch  them ;  others  in  my  trade  had  tried  to  catch 
their  impostor-doubles  and  had  failed.  Then  where 
was  the  use  in  harrying  a  ghost?  None  —  and  so  I 
did  not  disturb  it.  I  had  a  curiosity  to  know  about 
that  man's  lecture-tour  and  last  moments,  but  that 
could  wait.  When  I  should  see  Mr.  Bascom  he  would 
tell  me  all  about  it.  But  he  passed  from  life,  and  I 
never  saw  him  again,  My  curiosity  faded  away. 

However,  when  I  found  that  I  was  going  to  Aus 
tralia  it  revived.  And  naturally:  for  if  the  people 
should  say  that  I  was  a  dull,  poor  thing  compared 
to  what  I  was  before  I  died,  it  would  have  a  bad 
effect  on  business.  Well,  to  my  surprise  the  Sydney 
journalists  had  never  heard  of  that  impostor !  I 
pressed  them,  but  they  were  firm  —  they  had  never 
heard  of  him,  and  didn't  believe  in  him. 


Following  the  Equator  161 

I  could  not  understand  it ;  still,  I  thought  it  would 
all  come  right  in  Melbourne.  The  government 
would  remember ;  and  the  other  mourners.  At  the 
supper  of  the  Institute  of  Journalists  I  should  find 
out  all  about  the  matter.  But  no  —  it  turned  out 
that  they  had  never  heard  of  it. 

So  my  mystery  was  a  mystery  still.  It  was  a 
great  disappointment.  I  believed  it  would  never  be 
cleared  up  —  in  this  life  —  so  I  dropped  it  out  of 
my  mind. 

But  at  last !  just  when  I  was  least  expecting  it  — 

However,  this  is  not  the  place  for  the  rest  of  it ;  I 
shall  come  to  the  matter  again,  in  a  far-distant 
chapter. 


11* 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

There  Is  a  Moral  Sense,  and  there  is  an  Immoral  Sense.  History  shows  us 
that  the  Moral  Sense  enables  us  to  perceive  morality  and  how  to  avoid  it,  and 
that  the  Immoral  Sense  enables  us  to  perceive  immorality  and  how  to  enjoy  it, 

— Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  Ifew  Calendar. 

MELBOURNE  spreads  around  over  an  immense 
area  of  ground.  It  is  a  stately  city  architec 
turally  as  well  as  in  magnitude.  It  has  an  elaborate 
system  of  cable-car  service;  it  has  museums,  and 
colleges,  and  schools,  and  public  gardens,  and  elec 
tricity,  pnd  gas,  and  libraries,  and  theaters,  and 
mining  centers,  and  wool  centers,  and  centers  of  the 
arts  and  sciences,  and  boards  of  trade,  and  ships, 
and  railroads,  and  a  harbor,  and  social  clubs,  and 
journalistic  clubs,  and  racing  clubs,  and  a  squatter 
club  sumptuously  housed  and  appointed,  and  as 
many  churches  and  banks  as  can  make  a  living.  In 
a  word,  it  is  equipped  with  everything  that  goes  to 
make  the  modern  great  city.  It  is  the  largest  city 
of  Australasia,  and  fills  the  post  with  honor  and 
credit.  It  has  one  specialty;  this  must  not  be 
jumbled  in  with  those  other  things.  It  is  the  mitred 
Metropolitan  of  the  Horse-Racing  Cult.  Its  race- 
ground  is  the  Mecca  of  Australasia.  On  the  great 

(162) 


Following  the  Equator  163 

annual  day  of  sacrifice  —  the  5th  of  November,  Guy 
Fawkes's  Day  —  business  is  suspended  over  a  stretch 
of  land  and  sea  as  wide  as  from  New  York  to  San 
Francisco,  and  deeper  than  from  the  northern  lakes 
to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico;  and  every  man  and  woman, 
of  high  degree  or  low,  who  can  afford  the  expense, 
put  away  their  other  duties  and  come.  They  begin 
to  swarm  in  by  ship  and  rail  a  fortnight  before  the 
day,  and  they  swarm  thicker  and  thicker  day  after 
day,  until  all  the  vehicles  of  transportation  are  taxed 
to  their  uttermost  to  meet  the  demands  of  the  occa 
sion,  and  all  hotels  and  lodgings  are  bulging  outward 
because  of  the  pressure  from  within.  They  come  a 
hundred  thousand  strong,  as  all  the  best  authorities 
say,  and  they  pack  the  spacious  grounds  and  grand 
stands  and  make  a  spectacle  such  as  is  never  to  be 
seen  in  Australasia  elsewhere. 

It  is  the  "Melbourne  Cup"  that  brings  this 
multitude  together.  Their  clothes  have  been  ordered 
long  ago,  at  unlimited  cost,  and  without  bounds  as 
to  beauty  and  magnificence,  and  have  been  kept  in 
concealment  until  now,  for  unto  this  day  are  they 
consecrate.  I  am  speaking  of  the  ladies'  clothes; 
but  one  might  know  that. 

And  so  the  grand-stands  make  a  brilliant  and 
wonderful  spectacle,  a  delirium  of  color,  a  vision  of 
beauty.  The  champagne  flows,  everybody  is  viva 
cious,  excited,  happy;  everybody  bets,  and  gloves 
and  fortunes  change  hands  right  along,  all  the  time. 
Day  after  day  the  races  go  on,  and  the  fun  and  the 
K» 


164  Following  the  Equator 

excitement  are  kept  at  white  heat;  and  when  each 
day  is  done,  the  people  dance  all  night  so  as  to  be 
fresh  for  the  race  in  the  morning.  And  at  the  end 
of  the  great  week  the  swarms  secure  lodgings  and 
transportation  for  next  year,  then  flock  away  to 
their  remote  homes  and  count  their  gains  and  losses, 
and  order  next  year's  Cup-clothes,  and  then  lie 
down  and  sleep  two  weeks,  and  get  up  sorry  to  re 
flect  that  a  whole  year  must  be  put  in  somehow  or 
other  before  they  can  be  wholly  happy  again. 

The  Melbourne  Cup  is  the  Australasian  National 
Day.  It  would  be  difficult  to  overstate  its  impor 
tance.  It  overshadows  all  other  holidays  and  spe 
cialized  days  of  whatever  sort  in  that  congeries  of 
colonies.  Overshadows  them?  I  might  almost  say 
it  blots  them  out.  Each  of  them  gets  attention,  but 
not  everybody's;  each  of  them  evokes  interest,  but 
not  everybody's;  each  of  them  rouses  enthusiasm, 
but  not  everybody's;  in  each  case  a  part  of  the 
attention,  interest,  and  enthusiasm  is  a  matter  of 
habit  and  custom,  and  another  part  of  it  is  official 
and  perfunctory.  Cup  Day,  and  Cup  Day  only, 
commands  an  attention,  an  interest,  and  an  enthu 
siasm  which  are  universal  —  and  spontaneous,  not 
perfunctory.  Cup  Day  is  supreme  —  it  has  no 
rival.  I  can  call  to  mind  no  specialized  annual  day, 
in  any  country,  which  can  be  named  by  that  large 
name  —  Supreme.  I  can  call  to  mind  no  special 
ized  annual  day,  in  any  country,  whose  approach 
fires  the  whole  land  with  a  conflagration  of  conversa- 


Following  the  Equator  165 

tion  and  preparation  and  anticipation  and  jubilation. 
No  day  save  this  one ;  but  this  one  does  it. 

In  America  we  have  no  annual  supreme  day ;  no 
day  whose  approach  makes  the  whole  nation  glad. 
We  have  the  Fourth  of  July,  and  Christmas,  and 
Thanksgiving.  Neither  of  them  can  claim  the 
primacy;  neither  of  them  can  arouse  an  enthusiasm 
which  comes  near  to  being  universal.  Eight  grown 
Americans  out  of  ten  dread  the  coming  of  the 
Fourth,  with  its  pandemonium  and  its  perils,  and 
they  rejoice  when  it  is  gone  —  if  still  alive.  The 
approach  of  Christmas  brings  harassment  and  dread 
to  many  excellent  people.  They  have  to  buy  a 
cart-load  of  presents,  and  they  never  know  what  to 
buy  to  hit  the  various  tastes;  they  put  in  three 
weeks  of  hard  and  anxious  work,  and  when  Christ 
mas  morning  comes  they  are  so  dissatisfied  with  the 
result,  and  so  disappointed  that  they  want  to  sit 
down  and  cry.  Then  they  give  thanks  that  Christ 
mas  conies  but  once  a  year.  The  observance  of 
Thanksgiving  Day  —  as  a  function  —  has  become 
general  of  late  years.  The  Thankfulness  is  not  so 
general.  This  is  natural.  Two-thirds  of  the  nation 
have  always  had  hard  luck  and  a  hard  time  during 
the  year,  and  this  has  a  calming  effect  upon  their 
enthusiasm. 

We  have  a  supreme  day  —  a  sweeping  and  tre 
mendous  and  tumultuous  day,  a  day  which  com 
mands  an  absolute  universality  of  interest  and  excite 
ment;  but  it  is  not  annual.  It  comes  but  once  in 


166  Following  the  Equator 

four  years ;  therefore  it  cannot  count  as  a  rival  of 
the  Melbourne  Cup. 

In  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  they  have  two  great 
days  —  Christmas  and  the  Queen's  birthday.  But 
they  are  equally  popular;  there  is  no  supremacy. 

I  think  it  must  be  conceded  that  the  position  of 
the  Australasian  Day  is  unique,  solitary,  unfellowed ; 
and  likely  to  hold  that  high  place  a  long  time. 

The  things  which  interest  us  when  we  travel 
are,  first,  the  people;  next,  the  novelties;  and 
finally  the  history  of  the  places  and  countries 
visited.  Novelties  are  rare  in  cities  which  represent 
the  most  advanced  civilization  of  the  modern  day. 
When  one  is  familiar  with  such  cities  in  the  other 
parts  of  the  world  he  is  in  effect  familiar  with  the 
cities  of  Australasia.  The  outside  aspects  will  fur 
nish  little  that  is  new.  There  will  be  new  names, 
but  the  things  which  they  represent  will  sometimes 
be  found  to  be  less  new  than  their  names.  There 
may  be  shades  of  difference,  but  these  can  easily  be 
too  fine  for  detection  by  the  incompetent  eye  of  the 
passing  stranger.  In  the  larrikin  he  will  not  be  able 
to  discover  a  new  species,  but  only  an  old  one  met 
elsewhere,  and  variously  called  loafer,  rough,  tough, 
bummer,  or  blatherskite,  according  to  his  geograph 
ical  distribution.  The  larrikin  differs  by  a  shade 
from  those  others,  in  that  he  is  more  sociable  toward 
the  stranger  than  they,  more  kindly  disposed,  more 
hospitable,  more  hearty,  more  friendly.  At  least  it 
seemed  so  to  me,  and  I  had  opportunity  to  observe. 


Following  the  Equator  167 

In  Sydney,  at  least.  In  Melbourne  I  had  to  drive 
to  and  from  the  lecture-theater,  but  in  Sydney  I  was 
able  to  walk  both  ways,  and  did  it.  Every  night, 
on  my  way  home  at  ten,  or  a  quarter  past,  I  found 
the  larrikin  grouped  in  considerable  force  at  several 
of  the  street  corners,  and  he  always  gave  me  this 
pleasant  salutation : 

"Hello,  Mark!" 

4 'Here's  to  you,  old  chap!" 

' '  Say  —  Mark  !  —  is  he  dead  ?  " —  a  reference  to  a 
passage  in  some  book  of  mine,  though  I  did  not 
detect,  at  that  time,  that  that  was  its  source.  And 
I  didn't  detect  it  afterward  in  Melbourne,  when  I 
came  on  the  stage  for  the  first  time,  and  the  same 
question  was  dropped  down  upon  me  from  the  dizzy 
height  of  the  gallery.  It  is  always  difficult  to  answer 
a  sudden  inquiry  like  that,  when  you  have  come 
unprepared  and  don't  know  what  it  means.  I  will 
remark  here  —  if  it  is  not  an  indecorum  —  that  the 
welcome  which  an  American  lecturer  gets  from  a 
British  colonial  audience  is  a  thing  which  will  move 
him  to  his  deepest  deeps,  and  veil  his  sight  ano 
break  his  voice.  And  from  Winnipeg  to  Africa, 
experience  will  teach  him  nothing;  he  will  never 
learn  to  expect  it,  it  will  catch  him  as  a  surprise 
each  time.  The  war-cloud  hanging  black  over  Eng 
land  and  America  made  no  trouble  for  me.  I  was 
a  prospective  prisoner  of  war,  but  at  dinners,  sup 
pers,  on  the  platform,  and  elsewhere,  there  was 
never  anything  to  remind  me  of  it.  This  was  hos- 


168  Following  the  Equator 

pitality  of  the  right  metal,  and  would  have  been 
prominently  lacking  in  some  countries,  in  the  cir 
cumstances. 

And  speaking  of  the  war-flurry,  it  seemed  to  me 
to  bring  to  light  the  unexpected,  in  a  detail  or  two. 
It  seemed  to  relegate  the  war-talk  to  the  politicians 
on  both  sides  of  the  water;  whereas  whenever  a 
prospective  war  between  two  nations  had  been  in  the 
air  theretofore,  the  public  had  done  most  of  the 
talking  and  the  bitterest.  The  attitude  of  the  news 
papers  was  new  also.  I  speak  of  those  of  Austra 
lasia  and  India,  for  I  had  access  to  those  only. 
They  treated  the  subject  argumentatively  and  with 
dignity,  not  with  spite  and  anger.  That  was  a  new 
spirit,  too,  and  not  learned  of  the  French  and  Ger 
man  press,  either  before  Sedan  or  since.  I  heard 
many  public  speeches,  and  they  reflected  the 
moderation  of  the  journals.  The  outlook  is  that 
the  English-speaking  race  will  dominate  the  earth  a 
hundred  years  from  now,  if  its  sections  do  not  get 
to  fighting  each  other.  It  would  be  a  pity  to  spoil 
that  prospect  by  baffling  and  retarding  wars  when 
arbitration  would  settle  their  differences  so  much 
better  and  also  so  much  more  definitely. 

No,  as  I  have  suggested,  novelties  are  rare  in  the 
great  capitals  of  modern  times.  Even  the  wool  ex 
change  in  Melbourne  could  not  be  told  from  the 
familiar  stock  exchange  of  other  countries.  Wool 
brokers  are  just  like  stockbrokers ;  they  all  bounce 
from  their  seats  and  put  up  their  hands  and  yell  in 


Following  the  Equator  169 

unison  —  no  stranger  can  tell  what  —  and  the  presi 
dent  calmly  says — "Sold  to  Smith  &  Co.,  threp- 
pence  farthing — next!" — when  probably  nothing 
of  the  kind  happened;  for  how  should  he  know? 

In  the  museums  you  will  find  acres  of  the  most 
strange  and  fascinating  things ;  but  all  museums  are 
fascinating,  and  they  do  so  tire  your  eyes,  and  break 
your  back,  and  burn  out  your  vitalities  with  their 
consuming  interest.  You  always  say  you  will  never 
go  again,  but  you  do  go.  The  palaces  of  the  rich, 
in  Melbourne,  are  much  like  the  palaces  of  the  rich 
in  America,  and  the  life  in  them  is  the  same ;  but 
there  the  resemblance  ends.  The  grounds  surround 
ing  the  American  palace  are  not  often  large,  and  not 
often  beautiful,  but  in  the  Melbourne  case  the 
grounds  are  often  ducally  spacious,  and  the  climate 
and  the  gardeners  together  make  them  as  beautiful 
as  a  dream.  It  is  said  that  some  of  the  country 
seats  have  grounds  —  domains  —  about  them  which 
rival  in  charm  and  magnitude  those  which  surround 
the  country  mansion  of  an  English  lord ;  but  I  was 
not  out  in  the  country;  I  had  my  hands  full  in  town. 

And  what  was  the  origin  of  this  majestic  city  and 
its  efflorescence  of  palatial  town  houses  and  country 
seats?  Its  first  brick  was  laid  and  its  first  house 
built  by  a  passing  convict.  Australian  history  is 
almost  always  picturesque;  indeed,  it  is  so  curious 
and  strange,  that  it  is  itself  the  chief est  novelty  the 
country  has  to  offer,  and  so  it  pushes  the  other 
novelties  into  second  and  third  place.  It  does  not 


170  Following  the  Equator 

read  like  history,  but  like  the  most  beautiful  lies. 
And  all  of  a  fresh  new  sort,  no  moldy  old  stale 
ones.  It  is  full  of  surprises,  and  adventures,  and 
incongruities,  and  contradictions,  and  incredibilities; 
but  they  are  all  true,  they  all  happened. 


CHAPTER    XVII. 

The  English  are  mentioned  in  the  Bible:  Blessed  are  the  meek,  for  they  shall 
inherit  the  earth.  —  Pudd'nhead  Wilsoris  New  Calendar* 

WHEN  we  consider  the  immensity  of  the  British 
Empire  in  territory,  population,  and  trade,  it 
requires  a  stern  exercise  of  faith  to  believe  in  the 
figures  which  represent  Australasia's  contribution  to 
the  Empire's  commercial  grandeur.  As  compared 
with  the  landed  estate  of  the  British  Empire,  the 
landed  estate  dominated  by  any  other  Power  except 
one  —  Russia  —  is  not  very  impressive  for  size.  My 
authorities  make  the  British  Empire  not  much  short 
of  a  fourth  larger  than  the  Russian  Empire. 
Roughly  proportioned,  if  you  will  allow  your  entire 
hand  to  represent  the  British  Empire,  you  may  then 
cut  off  the  fingers  a  trifle  above  the  middle  joint  of 
the  middle  finger,  and  what  is  left  of  the  hand  will 
represent  Russia.  The  populations  ruled  by  Great 
Britain  and  China  are  about  the  same  —  400,000,000 
each.  No  other  Power  approaches  these  figures. 
Even  Russia  is  left  far  behind. 

The    population    of     Australasia  —  4,000,000  — 
sinks  into  nothingness,  and  is  lost  from  sight  in  that 

(171) 


172  Following  the  Equator 

British  ocean  of  400,000,000.  Yet  the  statistics 
indicate  that  it  rises  again  and  shows  up  very  con 
spicuously  when  its  share  of  the  Empire's  commerce 
is  the  matter  under  consideration.  The  value  of 
England's  annual  exports  and  imports  is  stated  at 
three  billions  of  dollars,*  and  it  is  claimed  that  more 
than  one-tenth  of  this  great  aggregate  is  represented 
by  Australasia's  exports  to  England  and  imports  from 
England. f  In  addition  to  this,  Australasia  does  a 
trade  with  countries  other  than  England,  amounting 
to  a  hundred  million  dollars  a  year,  and  a  domestic 
intercolonial  trade  amounting  to  a  hundred  and  fifty 
millions.f 

In  round  numbers  the  4,000,000  buy  and  sell 
about  $600,000,000  worth  of  goods  a  year.  It  is 
claimed  that  about  half  of  this  represents  commodi 
ties  of  Australasian  production.  The  products  ex 
ported  annually  by  India  are  worth  a  trifle  over 
$500,000,000.*  Now,  here  are  some  faith-straining 
figures : 

Indian  production  (300,000,000  population), 
$500,000,000. 

Australasian  production  (4,000,000  population), 
$300,000,000. 

That  is  to  say,  the  product  of  the  individual  In 
dian,  annually  (for  export  some  whither),  is  worth 
$1.75;  that  of  the  individual  Australasian  (for  ex 
port  some  whither),  $75  !  Or,  to  put  it  in  another 
way,  the  Indian  family  of  man  and  wife  and  three 

*  New  South  Wales  Blue  Book.  t  D.  M.  Luckie. 


Following  the  Equator 


173 


174  Following  the  Equator 

children  sends  away  an  annual  result  worth  $8.75, 
while  the  Australasian  family  sends  away  $375 
worth. 

There  are  trustworthy  statistics  furnished  by  Sir 
Richard  Temple  and  others,  which  show  that  the 
individual  Indian's  whole  annual  product,  both  for 
export  and  home  use,  is  worth  in  gold  only  $7.50; 
or>  $37-5°  f°r  the  family-aggregate.  Ciphered  out 
on  a  like  ratio  of  multiplication,  the  Australasian 
family's  aggregate  production  would  be  nearly 
$1,600.  Truly,  nothing  is  so  astonishing  as  figures, 
if  they  once  get  started. 

We  left  Melbourne  by  rail  for  Adelaide,  the  capi 
tal  of  the  vast  Province  of  South  Australia  —  a 
seventeen-hour  excursion.  On  the  train  we  found 
several  Sydney  friends ;  among  them  a  Judge  who 
was  going  out  on  circuit,  and  was  going  to  hold 
court  at  Broken  Hill,  where  the  celebrated  silver 
mine  is.  It  seemed  a  curious  road  to  take  to  get  to 
that  region.  Broken  Hill  is  close  to  the  western 
border  of  New  South  Wales,  and  Sydney  is  on  the 
eastern  border.  A  fairly  straight  line,  700  miles 
long,  drawn  westward  from  Sydney,  would  strike 
Broken  Hill,  just  as  a  somewhat  shorter  one  drawn 
west  from  Boston  would  strike  Buffalo.  The  way 
the  Judge  was  traveling  would  carry  him  over  2,000 
miles  by  rail,  he  said;  southwest  from  Sydney  down 
to  Melbourne,  then  northward  up  to  Adelaide,  then 
a  cant  back  northeastward  and  over  the  border  into 
New  South  Wales  once  more  —  to  Broken  Hill.  It 


Following  the  Equator  175 

was  like  going  from  Boston  southwest  to  Richmond, 
Virginia,  then  northwest  up  to  Erie,  Pennsylvania, 
then  a  cant  back  northeast  and  over  the  border  —  to 
Buffalo,  New  York. 

But  the  explanation  was  simple.  Years  ago  the 
fabulously  rich  silver  discovery  at  Broken  Hill  burst 
suddenly  upon  an  unexpectant  world.  Its  stocks 
started  at  shillings,  and  went  by  leaps  and  bounds 
to  the  most  fanciful  figures.  It  was  one  of  those 
cases  where  the  cook  puts  a  month's  wages  into 
shares,  and  comes  next  month  and  buys  your  house 
at  your  own  price,  and  moves  into  it  herself;  where 
the  coachman  takes  a  few  shares,  and  next  month 
sets  up  a  bank;  and  where  the  common  sailor  in 
vests  the  price  of  a  spree,  and  the  next  month  buys 
out  the  steamship  company  and  goes  into  business 
on  his  own  hook.  In  a  word,  it  was  one  of  those 
excitements  which  bring  multitudes  of  people  to  a 
common  center  with  a  rush,  and  whose  needs  must 
be  supplied,  and  at  once.  Adelaide  was  close  by, 
Sydney  was  far  away.  Adelaide  threw  a  short  rail 
way  across  the  border  before  Sydney  had  time  to 
arrange  for  a  long  one ;  it  was  not  worth  while  for 
Sydney  to  arrange  at  all.  The  whole  vast  trade- 
profit  of  Broken  Hill  fell  into  Adelaide's  hands, 
irrevocably.  New  South  Wales  furnishes  law  for 
Broken  Hill  and  sends  her  Judges  2,000  miles  — 
mainly  through  alien  countries  —  to  administer  it, 
but  Adelaide  takes  the  dividends  and  makes  no 
moan. 


176  Following  the  Equator 

We  started  at  4.20  in  the  afternoon,  and  moved 
across  level  plains  until  night.  In  the  morning  we 
had  a  stretch  of  "scrub"  country  —  the  kind  of 
thing  which  is  so  useful  to  the  Australian  novelist. 
In  the  scrub  the  hostile  aboriginal  lurks,  and  flits 
mysteriously  about,  slipping  out  from  time  to  time 
to  surprise  and  slaughter  the  settler;  then  slipping 
back  again,  and  leaving  no  track  that  the  white  man 
can  follow.  In  the  scrub  the  novelist's  heroine  gets 
lost,  search  fails  of  result;  she  wanders  here  and 
there,  and  finally  sinks  down  exhausted  and  uncon 
scious,  and  the  searchers  pass  within  a  yard  or  two 
of  her,  not  suspecting  that  she  is  near,  and  by  and 
by  some  rambler  find  her  bones  and  the  pathetic 
diary  which  she  had  scribbled  with  her  failing  hand 
and  left  behind.  Nobody  can  find  a  lost  heroine  in 
the  scrub  but  the  aboriginal  "  tracker,"  and  he  will 
not  lend  himself  to  the  scheme  if  it  will  interfere 
with  the  novelist's  plot.  The  scrub  stretches  miles 
and  miles  in  all  directions,  and  looks  like  a  level 
roof  of  bush-tops  without  a  break  or  a  crack  in  it  — 
as  seamless  as  a  blanket,  to  all  appearance.  One 
might  as  well  walk  under  water  and  hope  to  guess 
out  a  route  and  stick  to  it,  I  should  think.  Yet  it  is 
claimed  that  the  aboriginal  "  tracker"  was  able  to 
hunt  out  people  lost  in  the  scrub.  Also  in  the 
"bush";  also  in  the  desert;  and  even  follow  them 
over  patches  of  bare  rocks  and  over  alluvial  ground 
which  had  to  all  appearance  been  washed  clear  of 
footprints. 


Following  the  Equator  177 

From  reading  Australian  books  and  talking  with 
the  people,  I  became  convinced  that  the  aboriginal 
tracker's  performances  evince  a  craft,  a  penetration, 
a  luminous  sagacity,  and  a  minuteness  and  accuracy 
of  observation  in  the  matter  of  detective-work  not 
found  in  nearly  so  remarkable  a  degree  in  any  other 
people,  white  or  colored.  In  an  official  account  of 
the  blacks  of  Australia  published  by  the  government 
of  Victoria,  one  reads  that  the  aboriginal  not  only 
notices  the  faint  marks  left  on  the  bark  of  a  tree  by 
the  claws  of  a  climbing  opossum,  but  knows  in  some 
way  or  other  whether  the  marks  were  made  to-day 
or  yesterday. 

And  there  is  the  case,  on  record,  where  A.,  a 
settler,  makes  a  bet  with  B.,  that  B.  may  lose  a  cow 
as  effectually  as  he  can,  and  A.  will  produce  an 
aboriginal  who  will  find  her.  B.  selects  a  cow  and 
lets  the  tracker  see  the  cow's  footprint,  then  be  put 
under  guard.  B.  then  drives  the  cow  a  few  miles 
over  a  course  which  drifts  in  all  directions,  and  fre 
quently  doubles  back  upon  itself;  and  he  selects 
difficult  ground  all  the  time,  and  once  or  twice  ever/ 
drives  the  cow  through  herds  of  other  cows,  and 
mingles  her  tracks  in  the  wide  confusion  of  theirs. 
He  finally  brings  his  cow  home ;  the  aboriginal  is 
set  at  liberty,  and  at  once  moves  around  in  a  great 
circle,  examining  all  cow-tracks  until  he  finds  the 
one  he  is  after  j  then  sets  off  and  follows  it  through 
out  its  erratic  course,  and  ultimately  tracks  it  to  the 
stable  where  B.  has  hidden  the  cow.  Now  wherein 
12. 


178  Following  the  Equator 

does  one  cow-track  differ  from  another?  There  must 
be  a  difference,  or  the  tracker  could  not  have  per 
formed  the  feat;  a  difference  minute,  shadowy,  and 
not  detectible  by  you  or  me,  or  by  the  late  Sherlock 
Holmes,  and  yet  discernible  by  a  member  of  a  race 
charged  by  some  people  with  occupying  the  bottom 
place  in  the  gradations  of  human  intelligence. 


CHAPTER   XVIII. 

It  is  easier  to  stay  out  than  get  out.—  Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 


"PHE  train  was  now  exploring  a  beautiful  hill 
•  country,  and  went  twisting  in  and  out  through 
lovely  little  green  valleys.  There  were  several 
varieties  of  gum-trees;  among  them  many  giants. 
Some  of  them  were  bodied  and  barked  like  the 
sycamore;  some  were  of  fantastic  aspect,  and  re 
minded  one  of  the  quaint  apple  trees  in  Japanese 
pictures.  And  there  was  one  peculiarly  beautiful 
tree  whose  name  and  breed  I  did  not  know.  The 
foliage  seemed  to  consist  of  big  bunches  of  pine- 
spines,  the  lower  half  of  each  bunch  a  rich  brown  or 
old-gold  color,  the  upper  half  a  most  vivid  and 
strenuous  and  shouting  green.  The  effect  was  alto 
gether  bewitching.  The  tree  was  apparently  rare. 
I  should  say  that  the  first  and  last  samples  of  it  seen 
by  us  were  not  more  than  half  an  hour  apart. 
There  was  another  tree  of  striking  aspect,  a  kind  of 
pine,  we  were  told.  Its  foliage  was  as  fine  as  hair, 
apparently,  and  its  mass  sphered  itself  above  the 
naked  straight  stem  like  an  explosion  of  misty 
smoke.  It  was  not  a  sociable  sort;  it  did  not  gather 
in  groups  or  couples,  but  each  individual  stood  far 

L*  (179) 


180  Following  the  Equator 

away  from  its  nearest  neighbor.  It  scattered  itself 
in  this  spacious  and  exclusive  fashion  about  the 
slopes  of  swelling  grassy  great  knolls,  and  stood  in 
the  full  flood  of  the  wonderful  sunshine ;  and  as  far 
as  you  could  see  the  tree  itself  you  could  also  see 
the  ink-black  blot  of  its  shadow  on  the  shining  green 
carpet  at  its  feet. 

On  some  part  of  this  railway  journey  we  saw 
gorse  and  broom  —  importations  from  England  — 
and  a  gentleman  who  carne  into  our  compartment 
on  a  visit  tried  to  tell  me  which  was  which ;  but  as 
he  didn't  know,  he  had  difficulty.  He  said  he  was 
ashamed  of  his  ignorance,  but  that  he  had  never  been 
confronted  with  the  question  before  during  the  fifty 
years  and  more  that  he  had  spent  in  Australia,  and 
so  he  had  never  happened  to  get  interested  in  the 
matter.  But  there  was  no  need  to  be  ashamed. 
The  most  of  us  have  his  defect.  We  take  a  natural 
interest  in  novelties,  but  it  is  against  nature  to  take 
an  interest  in  familiar  things.  The  gorse  and  the 
broom  were  a  fine  accent  in  the  landscape.  Here 
and  there  they  burst  out  in  sudden  conflagrations  of 
vivid  yellow  against  a  background  of  sober  or  sombre 
color,  with  a  so  startling  effect  as  to  make  a  body 
catch  his  breath  with  the  happy  surprise  of  it.  And 
then  there  was  the  wattle,  a  native  bush  or  tree,  an 
inspiring  cloud  of  sumptuous  yellow  bloom.  It  is  a 
favorite  with  the  Australians,  and  has  a  fine  fra 
grance,  a  quality  usually  wanting  in  Australian 
blossoms. 


Following  the  Equator  181 

The  gentleman  who  enriched  me  with  the  poverty 
of  his  information  about  the  gorse  and  the  broom 
told  me  that  he  came  out  from  England  a  youth  of 
twenty  and  entered  the  Province  of  South  Australia 
with  thirty-six  shillings  in  his  pocket  —  an  adven 
turer  without  trade,  profession,  or  friends,  but  with 
a  clearly-defined  purpose  in  his  head :  he  would 
stay  until  he  was  worth  £200,  then  go  back  home. 
He  would  allow  himself  five  years  for  the  accumula 
tion  of  this  fortune. 

4 'That  was  more  than  fifty  years  ago,"  said  he. 
"And  here  I  am,  yet." 

As  .he  went  out  at  the  door  he  met  a  friend,  and 
turned  and  introduced  him  to  me,  and  the  friend 
and  I  had  a  talk  and  a  smoke.  I  spoke  of  the  pre 
vious  conversation  and  said  there  was  something 
very  pathetic  about  this  half  century  of  exile,  and 
that  I  wished  the  £200  scheme  had  succeeded. 

"With  him  f  Oh,  it  did.  It's  not  so  sad  a  case. 
He  is  modest,  and  he  left  out  some  of  the  particu 
lars.  The  lad  reached  South  Australia  just  in  time 
to  help  discover  the  Burra-Burra  copper  mines. 
They  turned  out  £700,000  in  the  first  three  years, 
Up  to  now  they  have  yielded  £20,000,000.  He 
has  had  his  share.  Before  that  boy  had  been  in  the 
country  two  years  he  could  have  gone  home  and 
bought  a  village ;  he  could  go  now  and  buy  a  city, 
I  think.  No,  there  is  nothing  very  pathetic  about 
his  case.  He  and  his  copper  arrived  at  just  a  handy 
time  to  save  South  Australia.  It  had  got  mashed 


182  Following  the  Equator 

pretty  flat  under  the  collapse  of  a  land  boom  a  while 
before." 

There  it  is  again;  picturesque  history  —  Austra 
lia's  specialty.  In  1829  South  Australia  hadn't  a 
white  man  in  it.  In  1836  the  British  Parliament 
erected  it  —  still  a  solitude  —  into  a  Province,  and 
gave  it  a  governor  and  other  governmental  machin 
ery.  Speculators  took  hold,  now,  and  inaugurated 
a  vast  land  scheme,  and  invited  immigration,  en 
couraging  it  with  lurid  promises  of  sudden  wealth. 
It  was  well  worked  in  London ;  and  bishops,  states 
men,  and  all  sorts  of  people  made  a  rush  for  the 
land  company's  shares.  Immigrants  soon  began  to 
pour  into  the  region  of  Adelaide  and  select  town 
lots  and  farms  in  the  sand  and  the  mangrove  swamps 
by  the  sea.  The  crowds  continued  to  come,  prices 
of  land  rose  high,  then  higher  and  still  higher, 
everybody  was  prosperous  and  happy,  the  boom 
swelled  into  gigantic  proportions.  A  village  of 
sheet-iron  huts  and  clapboard  sheds  sprang  up  in 
the  sand,  and  in  these  wigwams  fashion  made  dis 
play;  richly-dressed  ladies  played  on  costly  pianos, 
London  swells  in  evening  dress  and  patent-leather 
boots  were  abundant,  and  this  fine  society  drank 
champagne,  and  in  other  ways  conducted  itself  in 
this  capital  of  humble  sheds  as  it  had  been  accus 
tomed  to  do  in  the  aristocratic  quarters  of  the 
metropolis  of  the  world.  The  provincial  govern 
ment  put  up  expensive  buildings  for  its  own  use, 
and  a  palace  with  gardens  for  the  use  of  its  governor. 


Following  the  Equator  18} 

The  governor  had  a  guard,  and  maintained  a  court. 
Roads,  wharves,  and  hospitals  were  built.  All  this 
on  credit,  on  paper,  on  wind,  on  inflated  and  ficti 
tious  values  —  on  the  boom's  moonshine,  in  fact. 

This  went  en  handsomely  during  four  or  five 
years.  Then  all  of  a  sudden  came  a  smash.  Bills 
for  a  huge  amount  drawn  by  the  governor  upon 
the  Treasury  were  dishonored,  land  company's 
credit  went  up  in  smoke,  a  panic  followed,  values 
fell  with  a  rush,  the  frightened  immigrants  seized 
their  gripsacks  and  fled  to  other  lands,  leaving  be 
hind  them  a  good  imitation  of  a  solitude,  where 
lately  had  been  a  buzzing  and  populous  hive  of  men. 

Adelaide  was  indeed  almost  empty;  its  popula 
tion  had  fallen  to  3,000.  During  two  years  or  more 
the  death-trance  continued.  Prospect  of  revival 
there  was  none;  hope  of  it  ceased.  Then,  as  sud 
denly  as  the  paralysis  had  come,  came  the  resurrec 
tion  from  it.  Those  astonishingly  rich  copper  mines 
were  discovered,  and  the  corpse  got  up  and  danced. 

The  wool  production  began  to  grow;  grain-raising 
followed  —  followed  so  vigorously,  too,  that  four 
or  five  years  after  the  copper  discovery,  this  little 
colony,  which  had  had  to  import  its  breadstuffs 
formerly,  and  pay  hard  prices  for  them  —  once  $50 
a  barrel  for  flour  —  had  become  an  exporter  of 
grain.  The  prosperities  continued.  After  many 
years,  Providence,  desiring  to  show  especial  regard 
for  New  South  Wales  and  exhibit  a  loving  interest 
in  its  welfare  which  should  certify  to  all  nations  the 


184  Following  the  Equator 

recognition  of  that  colony's  conspicuous  righteous 
ness  and  distinguished  well-deserving,  conferred 
upon  it  that  treasury  of  inconceivable  riches,  Broken 
Hill ;  and  South  Australia  went  over  the  border  and 
took  it,  giving  thanks. 

Among  our  passengers  was  an  American  with  a 
unique  vocation.  Unique  is  a  strong  word,  but  I 
use  it  justifiably  if  I  did  not  misconceive  what  the 
American  told  me;  for  I  understood  him  to  say 
that  in  the  world  there  was  not  another  man  engaged 
in  the  business  which  he  was  following.  He  was 
buying  the  kangaroo-skin  crop ;  buying  all  of  it, 
both  the  Australian  crop  and  the  Tasmanian ;  and 
buying  it  for  an  American  house  in  New  York.  The 
prices  were  not  high,  as  there  was  no  competition, 
but  the  year's  aggregate  of  skins  would  cost  him 
.£30,000.  I  had  had  the  idea  that  the  kangaroo 
was  about  extinct  in  Tasmania  and  well  thinned  out 
on  the  continent.  In  America  the  skins  are  tanned 
and  made  into  shoes.  After  the  tanning,  the  leather 
takes  a  new  name  —  which  I  have  forgotten  —  I  only 
remember  that  the  new  name  does  not  indicate  that 
the  kangaroo  furnishes  the  leather.  There  was  a 
German  competition  for  a  while,  some  years  ago, 
but  that  has  ceased.  The  Germans  failed  to  arrive 
at  the  secret  of  tanning  the  skins  successfully,  and 
they  withdrew  from  the  business.  Now  then,  I 
suppose  that  I  have  seen  a  man  whose  occupation 
is  really  entitled  to  bear  that  high  epithet — unique. 
And  I  suppose  that  there  is  not  another  occupation 


Following  the  Equator  185 

in  the  world  that  is  restricted  to  the  hands  of  a  sole 
person.  I  can  think  of  no  instance  of  it.  There  is 
more  than  one  Pope,  there  is  more  than  one  Em 
peror,  there  is  even  more  than  one  living  god,  walk 
ing  upon  the  earth  and  worshiped  in  all  sincerity  by 
large  populations  of  men.  I  have  seen  and  talked 
with  two  of  these  Beings  myself  in  India,  and  I 
have  the  autograph  of  one  of  them.  It  can  come 
good,  by  and  by,  I  reckon,  if  I  attach  it  to  a 
41  permit". 

Approaching  Adelaide  we  dismounted  from  the 
train,  as  the  French  say,  and  were  driven  in  an  open 
carriage  over  the  hills  and  along  their  slopes  to  the 
city.  It  was  an  excursion  of  an  hour  or  two,  and 
the  charm  of  it  could  not  be  overstated,  I  think. 
The  road  wound  around  gaps  and  gorges,  and 
offered  all  varieties  of  scenery  and  prospect  — 
mountains,  crags,  country  homes,  gardens,  forests 
—  color,  color,  color  everywhere,  and  the  air  fine 
and  fresh,  the  skies  blue,  and  not  a  shred  of  cloud 
to  mar  the  downpour  of  the  brilliant  sunshine.  And 
finally  the  mountain  gateway  opened,  and  the  im 
mense  plain  lay  spread  out  below  and  stretching 
away  into  dim  distances  on  every  hand,  soft  and 
delicate  and  dainty  and  beautiful.  On  its  near  edge 
reposed  the  city. 

We  descended  and  entered.  There  was  nothing 
to  remind  one  of  the  humble  capital  of  huts  and 
sheds  of  the  long- vanished  day  of  the  land-boom. 
No,  this  was  a  modern  city,  with  wide  streets,  com- 


186 


Following  the  Equator 


pactly  built;  with  fine  homes  everywhere,  embow 
ered  in  foliage  and  flowers,  and  with  imposing 
masses  of  public  buildings  nobly  grouped  and 
architecturally  beautiful. 

There  was  prosperity  in  the  air ;  for  another  boom 
was  on.  Providence,  desiring  to  show  especial  re 
gard  for  the  neighboring  colony  on  the  west — called 
Western  Australia  —  and  exhibit  a  loving  interest  in 
its  welfare  which  should  certify  to  all  nations  the 
recognition  of  that  colony's  conspicuous  righteous 
ness  and  distinguished  well-deserving,  had  recently 
conferred  upon  it  that  majestic  treasury  of  golden 
riches,  Coolgardie;  and  now  South  Australia  had 
gone  around  the  corner  and  taken  it,  giving  thanks. 
Everything  comes  to  him  who  is  patient  and  good, 
and  waits. 

But  South  Australia  deserves  much,  for  apparently 
she  is  a  hospitable  home  for  every  alien  who  chooses 
to  come;  and  for  his  religion,  too.  She  has  a 
population,  as  per  the  latest  census,  of  only  320,000 
odd,  and  yet  her  varieties  of  religion  indicate  the 
presence  within  her  borders  of  samples  of  people 
from  pretty  nearly  every  part  of  the  globe  you  can 
think  of.  Tabulated,  these  varieties  of  religion 
make  a  remarkable  show.  One  would  have  to  go 
far  to  find  its  match.  I  copy  here  this  cosmopolitan 
curiosity,  and  it  comes  from  the  published  census : 


Church  of  England, 
Roman  Catholic,  . 
Wesley  an, 


89,271 
47,179 
49,159 


Lutheran, 
Presbyterian,  . 
Congregationalist, 


23,328 
18,206 
11,882 


Following  the  Equator 


Bible  Christian,       .        ..  15,762 

Primitive  Methodist,        .  11,654 
Baptist,.         .         .         .17,547 

Christian  Brethren,           ,  465 

Methodist  New  Connexion,  39 

Unitarian,       ...  688 

Church  of  Christ,    .         .  3,367 

Society  of  Friends,  .         .  100 

Salvation  Army,      .         .  4,356 

New  Jerusalem  Church,  .  168 


Jews,      . 

Protestants  (undefined), 

Mohammedans, 

Confucians,  etc.,     . 

Other  religions,       . 

Object,  . 

Not  stated, 

Total,      . 


187 

840 
5.532 

299 
3,884 

1*719 
6,940 
8,046 

320»43 1 


The  item  in  the  above  list  "  Other  religions"  in 
cludes  the  following  as  returned : 

Agnostics,       ...  50  Mennonists,    ...  1 

Atheists,          ...  22  Moravians,      .         .         .  139 

Believers  in  Christ,           .  4  Mormons,       ...  4 

Buddhists,      ...  52  Naturalists,     ...  2 

Calvinists,       ...  46  Orthodox,       ...  4 

Christadelphians,     .         .  134  Others  (indefinite),          .  17 

Christians,       ;         .         .  308  Pagans,           ...  2O 

Christ's  Chapel,       .         .  9  Pantheists,      ...  3 

Christian  Israelites,          .  2  Plymouth  Brethren,          .  in 

Christian  Socialists,          .  6  Rationalists,    ...  4 

Church  of  God,       .         .  6  Reformers,      ...  7 

Cosmopolitans,        .         .  3  .Secularists,      .          .  12 

Deists,   .         .         .         .  14  Seventh-day  Adventists,  .  203 

Evangelists,    ...  60  Shaker,           ...  I 

Exclusive  Brethren,          .  8  Shintoists,       ...  24 

Free  Church,           .         .  21  Spiritualists,    ...  37 

Free  Methodists,     .         .  5  Theosophists,      '    .  9 

Freethinkers,           .         .  258  Town  (City)  Mission,      .  16 

Followers  of  Christ,          .  8  Welsh  Church,        .         .  27 

Gospel  Meetings,     .         .  1 1  Huguenot,      ...  2 

Greek  Church,         .         .  44  Hussite,          ...  I 

Infidels,           ...  9  Zoroastrians,  ...  2 

Maronites,      ...  2  Zwinglian,      ...  I 

About  64  roads  to  the  other  world.     You  see  how 


188  Following  the  Equator 

healthy  the  religious  atmosphere  is.  Anything  can 
live  in  it.  Agnostics,  Atheists,  Freethinkers,  Infi 
dels,  Mormons,  Pagans,  Indefinites:  they  are  all 
there.  And  all  the  big  sects  of  the  world  can  do 
more  than  merely  live  in  it:  they  can  spread, 
flourish,  prosper.  All  except  the  Spiritualists  and 
the  Theosophists.  That  is  the  most  curious  feature 
of  this  curious  table.  What  is  the  matter  with  the 
specter?  Why  do  they  puff  him  away?  He  is  a 
welcome  toy  everywhere  else  in  the  world. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

Pity  is  for  the  living,  envy  is  for  the  dead. 

—Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

THE  successor  of  the  sheet-iron  hamlet  of  the 
mangrove  marshes  has  that  other  Australian 
specialty,  the  Botanical  Gardens.  We  cannot  have 
these  paradises.  The  best  we  could  do  would  be  to 
cover  a  vast  acreage  under  glass  and  apply  steam 
heat.  But  it  would  be  inadequate,  the  lacks  would 
still  be  so  great:  the  confined  sense,  the  sense  of 
suffocation,  the  atmospheric  dimness,  the  sweaty 
heat  —  these  would  all  be  there,  in  place  of  the 
Australian  openness  to  the  sky,  the  sunshine,  and  the 
breeze.  Whatever  will  grow  under  glass  with  us 
will  flourish  rampantly  out  of  doors  in  Australia.* 
When  the  white  man  came  the  continent  was  nearly 
as  poor,  in  variety  of  vegetation,  as  the  desert  of 
Sahara;  now  it  has  everything  that  grows  on  the 
earth.  In  fact,  not  Australia  only,  but  all  Austra 
lasia  has  levied  tribute  upon  the  flora  of  the  rest  of 
the  world ;  and  wherever  one  goes  the  results  ap- 


*The  greatest  heat  in  Victoria,  that  there  is  an  authoritative  record 
of,  was  at  Sandhurst,  in  January,  1862.  The  thermometer  then  regis 
tered  1 1 7  degrees  in  the  shade.  In  January,  1880,  the  heat  at  Adelaide, 
South  Australia,  was  172  degrees  in  the  sun. 

(189) 


190  Following  the  Equator 

pear,  in  gardens  private  and  public,  in  the  woodsy 
walls  of  the  highways,  and  in  even  the  forests.  If 
you  see  a  curious  or  beautiful  tree  or  bush  or  flower, 
and  ask  about  it,  the  people,  answering,  usually 
name  a  foreign  country  as  the  place  of  its  origin  — 
India,  Africa,  Japan,  China,  England,  America, 
Java,  Sumatra,  New  Guinea,  Polynesia,  and  so  on. 

In  the  Zoological  Gardens  of  Adelaide  I  saw  the 
only  laughing  jackass  that  ever  showed  any  disposi 
tion  to  be  courteous  to  me.  This  one  opened  his 
head  wide  and  laughed  like  a  demon;  or  like  a 
maniac  who  was  consumed  with  humorous  scorn 
over  a  cheap  and  degraded  pun.  It  was  a  very 
human  laugh.  If  he  had  been  out  of  sight  I  could 
have  believed  that  the  laughter  came  from  a  man. 
It  is  an  odd-looking  bird,  with  a  head  and  beak  that 
are  much  too  large  for  its  body.  In  time  man  will 
exterminate  the  rest  of  the  wild  creatures  of  Aus 
tralia,  but  this  one  will  probably  survive,  for  man  is 
his  friend  and  lets  him  alone.  Man  always  has  a 
good  reason  for  his  charities  toward  wild  things, 
human  or  animal  —  when  he  has  any.  In  this  case 
the  bird  is  spared  because  he  kills  snakes.  If  L.  J. 
will  take  my  advice  he  will  not  kill  all  of  them. 

In  that  garden  I  also  saw  the  wild  Australian  dog 
—  the  dingo.  He  was  a  beautiful  creature  — 
shapely,  graceful,  a  little  wolfish  in  some  of  his 
aspects,  but  with  a  most  friendly  eye  and  sociable 
disposition.  The  dingo  is  not  an  importation;  he 
was  present  in  great  force  when  the  whites  first  came 


Following  the  Equator  191 

to  the  continent.  It  may  be  that  he  is  the  oldest 
dog  in  the  universe;  his  origin,  his  descent,  the 
place  where  his  ancestors  first  appeared,  are  as  un 
known  and  as  untraceable  as  are  the  camel's.  He 
is  the  most  precious  dog  in  the  world,  for  he  does 
not  bark.  But  in  an  evil  hour  he  got  to  raiding  the 
sheep-runs  to  appease  his  hunger,  and  that  sealed 
his  doom.  He  is  hunted,  now,  just  as  if  he  were  a 
wolf.  He  has  been  sentenced  to  extermination,  and 
the  sentence  will  be  carried  out.  This  is  all  right, 
and  not  objectionable.  The  world  was  made  for 
man  —  the  white  man. 

South  Australia  is  ccnfusingly  named.  All  of 
the  colonies  have  a  southern  exposure  except  one  — 
Queensland.  Properly  speaking,  South  Australia  is 
middle  Australia.  It  extends  straight  up  through 
the  center  of  the  continent  like  the  middle  board  in 
a  center-table.  It  is  2,000  miles  high,  from  south 
to  north,  and  about  a  third  as  wide.  A  wee  little 
spot  down  in  its  southeastern  corner  contains  eight 
or  nine-tenths  of  its  population ;  the  other  one  or  two- 
tenths  are  elsewhere  —  as  elsewhere  as  they  could 
be  in  the  United  States  with  all  the  country  between 
Denver  and  Chicago,  and  Canada  and  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico  to  scatter  over.  There  is  plenty  of  room. 

A  telegraph  line  stretches  straight  up  north 
through  that  2,000  miles  of  wilderness  and  desert 
from  Adelaide  to  Port  Darwin  on  the  edge  of  the 
upper  ocean.  South  Australia  built  the  line;  and 
did  it  in  1 871-2  when  her  population  numbered  only 


192  Following  the  Equator 

185,000.  It  was  a  great  work;  for  there  were  no 
roads,  no  paths;  1,300  miles  of  the  route  had  been 
traversed  but  once  before  by  white  men;  provisions, 
wire,  and  poles  had  to  be  carried  over  immense 
stretches  of  desert ;  wells  had  to  be  dug  along  the 
route  to  supply  the  men  and  cattle  with  water. 

A  cable  had  been  previously  laid  from  Port  Dar 
win  to  Java  and  thence  to  India,  and  there  was  tele 
graphic  communication  with  England  from  India. 
And  so,  if  Adelaide  could  make  connection  with 
Port  Darwin  it  meant  connection  with  the  whole 
world.  The  enterprise  succeeded.  One  could  watch 
the  London  markets  daily,  now;  the  profit  to  the 
wool-growers  of  Australia  was  instant  and  enormous. 

A  telegram  from  Melbourne  to  San  Francisco 
covers  approximately  20,000  miles  —  the  equivalent 
of  five-sixths  of  the  way  around  the  globe.  It  has 
to  halt  along  the  way  a  good  many  times  and  be 
repeated;  still,  but  little  time  is  lost.  These  halts, 
and  the  distances  between  them,  are  here  tabulated.* 


Miles 

Melbourne  —  Mount  Gambler,  300 
Mount  Gambier  —  Adelaide,  270 
Adelaide  —  Port  Augusta,  .  200 
Pt.  Augusta  —  Alice  Springs,  1,036 
Alice  Springs  —  Port  Darwin,  898 
Pt.  Darwin  —  Banjoewangie,  1,150 
Banjoewangie  —  Batavia,  .  480 
Batavia  —  Singapore,  .  .  553 
Singapore  —  Penang,  .  .  399 
Penang  —  Madras,  .  .  .  1,280 


Miles 

Madras  —  Bombay,  .  .  .  650 
Bombay  —  Aden,  ....  1,662 

Aden  —  Suez, 1*346 

Suez  —  Alexandria,  .  .  .  224 
Alexandria  —  Malta,  ...  828 
Malta  —  Gibraltar,  .  .  .  1,008 
Gibraltar — Falmouth,  .  .  I,o6l 
Falmouth  —  London,  .  .  350 
London  —  New  York,  .  .  2,500 
New  York  —  San  Francisco,  3,500 


*From  "Round  the  Empire"   (George  R.  Parkin),  all  but  the 
last  two. 


Following  the  Equator  193 

I  was  in  Adelaide  again,  some  months  later,  and 
saw  the  multitudes  gather  in  the  neighboring  city  of 
Glenelg  to  commemorate  the  Reading  of  the  Procla 
mation —  in  1836  —  which  founded  the  Province. 
If  I  have  at  any  time  called  it  a  Colony,  I  withdraw 
the  discourtesy.  It  is  not  a  Colony,  it  is  a  Province ; 
and  officially  so.  Moreover,  it  is  the  only  one  so 
named  in  Australasia.  There  was  great  enthusiasm; 
it  was  the  Province's  national  holiday,  its  Fourth  of 
July,  so  to  speak.  It  is  the  pre-eminent  holiday ; 
and  that  ,is  saying  much,  in  a  country  where  they 
seem  to  have  a  most  un-English  mania  for  holidays. 
Mainly  they  are  workingmen's  holidays;  for  in 
South  Australia  the  workingman  is  sovereign;  his 
vote  is  the  desire  of  the  politician  —  indeed,  it  is  the 
very  breath  of  the  politician's  being;  the  parliament 
exists  to  deliver  the  will  of  the  workingman,  and  the 
Government  exists  to  execute  it.  The  workingman 
is  a  great  power  everywhere  in  Australia,  but  South 
Australia  is  his  paradise.  He  has  had  a  hard  time 
in  this  world,  and  has  earned  a  paradise.  I  am  glad 
he  has  found  it.  The  holidays  there  are  frequent 
enough  to  be  bewildering  to  the  stranger.  I  tried 
to  get  the  hang  of  the  system,  but  was  not  able  to 
do  it. 

You  have  seen  that  the  Province  is  tolerant, 
religious-wise.  It  is  so  politically,  also.  One  of 
the  speakers  at  the  Commemoration  banquet — the 
Minister  of  Public  Works  —  was  an  American,  born 
and  reared  in  New  England.  There  is  nothing 
13* 


194  Following  the  Equator 

narrow  about  the  Province,  politically,  or  in  any 
other  way  that  I  know  of.  Sixty-four  religions  and 
a  Yankee  cabinet  minister.  No  amount  of  horse- 
racing  can  damn  this  community. 

The  mean  temperature  of  the  Province  is  62°. 
The  death-rate  is  13  in  the  1,000  —  about  half  what 
it  is  in  the  city  of  New  York,  I  should  think,  and 
New  York  is  a  healthy  city.  Thirteen  is  the  death- 
rate  for  the  average  citizen  of  the  Province,  but 
there  seems  to  be  no  death-rate  for  the  old  people. 
There  were  people  at  the  Commemoration  banquet 
who  could  remember  Cromwell.  There  were  six  of 
them.  These  Old  Settlers  had  all  been  present  at 
the  original  Reading  of  the  Proclamation,  in  1836. 
They  showed  signs  of  the  blightings  and  blastings  of 
time,  in  their  outward  aspect,  but  they  were  young 
within;  young  and  cheerful,  and  ready  to  talk; 
ready  to  talk,  and  talk  all  you  wanted;  in  their 
turn,  and  out  of  it.  They  were  down  for  six 
speeches,  and  they  made  42.  The  governor  and 
the  cabinet  and  the  mayor  were  down  for  42 
speeches,  and  they  made  6.  They  have  splendid 
grit,  the  Old  Settlers,  splendid  staying  power.  But 
they  do  not  hear  well,  and  when  they  see  the  mayor 
going  through  motions  which  they  recognize  as  the 
introducing  of  a  speaker,  they  think  they  are  the 
one,  and  they  all  get  up  together,  and  begin  to  re 
spond,  in  the  most  animated  way;  and  the  more  the 
mayor  gesticulates,  and  shouts  "Sit  do\vn !  Sit 
down!"  the  more  they  take  it  for  applause,  and  the 


Following  the  Equator  195 

more  excited  and  reminiscent  and  enthusiastic  they 
get;  and  next,  when  they  see  the  whole  house 
laughing  and  crying,  three  of  them  think  it  is  about 
the  bitter  old-time  hardships  they  are  describing, 
and  the  other  three  think  the  laughter  is  caused  by 
the  jokes  they  have  been  uncorking  —  jokes  of  the 
vintage  of  1836  —  and  then  the  way  they  do  go  on ! 
And  finally  when  ushers  come  and  plead,  and  beg, 
and  gently  and  reverently  crowd  them  down  into 
their  seats,  they  say,  "  Oh,  I'm  not  tired  —  I  could 
bang  along  a  week ! ' '  and  they  sit  there  looking 
simple  and  childlike,  and  gentle,  and  proud  of  their 
oratory,  and  wholly  unconscious  of  what  is  going 
on  at  the  other  end  of  the  room.  And  so  one  of 
the  great  dignitaries  gets  a  chance,  and  begins  his 
carefully-prepared  speech,  impressively  and  with 
solemnity : 

"  When  we,  now  great  and  prosperous  and  powerful,  bow  our  heads 
in  reverent  wonder  in  the  contemplation  of  those  sublimities  of  energy, 
of  wisdom,  of  forethought,  of  —  " 

Up  come  the  immortal  six  again,  in  a  body,  with 
a  joyous  "  Hey,  I've  thought  of  another  one !"  and 
at  it  they  go,  with  might  and  main,  hearing  not  a 
whisper  of  the  pandemonium  that  salutes  them,  but 
taking  all  the  visible  violences  for  applause,  as  be 
fore,  and  hammering  joyously  away  till  the  implor 
ing  ushers  pray  them  into  their  seats  again.  And  a 
pity,  too ;  for  those  lovely  old  boys  did  so  enjoy 
living  their  heroic  youth  over,  in  these  days  of  their 
honored  antiquity;  and  certainly  the  things  they 


196  Following  the  Equator 

had  to  tell  were  usually  worth  the  telling  and  the 
hearing. 

It  was  a  stirring  spectacle ;  stirring  in  more  ways 
than  one,  for  it  was  amazingly  funny,  and  at  the 
same  time  deeply  pathetic ;  for  they  had  seen  so 
much,  these  time-worn  veterans,  and  had  suffered  so 
much ;  and  had  built  so  strongly  and  well,  and  laid 
the  foundations  of  their  commonwealth  so  deep,  in 
liberty  and  tolerance;  and  had  lived  to  see  the 
structure  rise  to  such  state  and  dignity  and  hear 
themselves  so  praised  for  their  honorable  work. 

One  of  these  old  gentlemen  told  me  some  things 
of  interest  afterward ;  things  about  the  aboriginals, 
mainly.  Rethought  them  intelligent  —  remarkably 
so  in  some  directions  —  and  he  said  that  along  with 
their  unpleasant  qualities  they  had  some  exceedingly 
good  ones ;  and  he  considered  it  a  great  pity  that 
the  race  had  died  out.  He  instanced  their  invention 
of  the  boomerang  and  the  ' '  weet-weet ' '  as  evi 
dences  of  their  brightness ;  and  as  another  evidence 
of  it  he  said  he  had  never  seen  a  white  man  who 
had  cleverness  enough  to  learn  to  do  the  miracles 
with  those  two  toys  that  the  aboriginals  achieved. 
He  said  that  even  the  smartest  whites  had  been 
obliged  to  confess  that  they  could  not  learn  the  trick 
of  the  boomerang  in  perfection ;  that  it  had  possi 
bilities  which  they  could  not  master.  The  white 
man  could  not  control  its  motions,  could  not  make 
it  obey  him;  but  the  aboriginal  could.  He  told  me 
some  wonderful  things  —  some  almost  incredible 


Following  the  Equator  197 

things  —  which  he  had  seen  the  blacks  do  with  the 
boomerang  and  the  weet-weet.  They  have  been 
confirmed  to  me  since  by  other  early  settlers  and  by 
trustworthy  books. 

It  is  contended  —  and  may  be  said  to  be  conceded 
—  that  the  boomerang  was  known  to  certain  savage 
tribes  in  Europe  in  Roman  times.  In  support  of 
this,  Virgil  and  two  other  Roman  poets  are  quoted. 
It  is  also  contended  that  it  was  known  to  the  ancient 
Egyptians. 

One  of  two  things  is  then  apparent :  either  some 
one  with  a  boomerang  arrived  in  Australia  in  the 
days  of  antiquity  before  European  knowledge  of  the 
thing  had  been  lost,  or  the  Australian  aboriginal 
re-invented  it.  It  will  take  some  time  to  find  out 
which  of  these  two  propositions  is  the  fact.  But 
there  is  no  hurry. 


CHAPTER   XX. 

It  is  by  the  goodness  of  God  that  in  our  country  we  have  those  three  un 
speakably  precious  things  :  freedom  of  speech,  freedom  of  conscience,  and  the 
prudence  never  to  practice  either  of  them. 

— Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

rROM  diary: 
Mr.  G.  called.  I  had  not  seen  him  since 
Nauheim,  Germany  —  several  years  ago;  the  time 
that  the  cholera  broke  out  at  Hamburg.  We  talked 
of  the  people  we  had  known  there,  or  had  casually 
met;  and  G.  said : 

"Do  you  remember  my  introducing  you  to  an 
earl  — the  Earl  of  C.?" 

"  Yes.  That  was  the  last  time  I  saw  you.  You 
and  he  were  in  a  carriage,  just  starting  —  belated  — 
for  the  train.  I  remember  it." 

"I  remember  it  too,  because  of  a  thing  which 
happened  then  which  I  was  not  looking  for.  He 
had  told  me  a  while  before  about  a  remarkable  and 
interesting  Californian  whom  he  had  met  and  who 
was  a  friend  of  yours,  and  said  that  if  he  should 
ever  meet  you  he  would  ask  you  for  some  particulars 
about  that  Californian.  The  subject  was  not  men 
tioned  that  day  at  Nauheim,  for  we  were  hurrying 

(198) 


Following  the  Equator  199 

away,  and  there  was  no  time;  but  the  thing  that 
surprised  me  was  this:  when  I  introduced  you,  you 
said,  'I  am  glad  to  meet  your  lordship  —  again.' 
The  '  again  '  was  the  surprise.  He  is  a  little  hard 
of  hearing,  and  didn't  catch  that  word,  and  I 
thought  you  hadn't  intended  that  he  should.  As 
we  drove  off  I  had  only  time  to  say,  '  Why,  what  do 
you  know  about  him?'  and  I  understood  you  to 
say,  '  Oh,  nothing,  except  that  he  is  the  quickest 
judge  of — '  Then  we  were  gone,  and  I  didn't  get 
the  rest.  I  wondered  what  it  was  that  he  was  such 
a  quick  judge  of.  I  have  thought  of  it  many  times 
since,  and  still  wondered  what  it  could  be.  He  and 
I  talked  it  over,  but  could  not  guess  it  out.  He 
thought  it  must  be  fox-hounds  or  horses,  for  he  is  a 
good  judge  of  those  —  no  one  is  a  better.  But  you 
couldn't  know  that,  because  you  didn't  know^«#/ 
you  had  mistaken  him  for  some  one  else ;  it  must  be 
that,  he  said,  because  he  knew  you  had  never  met 
him  before.  And  of  course  you  hadn't  —  had 
you?" 

"Yes,  I  had." 

"Is  that  so?     Where?" 

"  At  a  fox-hunt,  in  England." 

11  How  curious  that  is.  Why,  he  hadn't  the  least 
recollection  of  it.  Had  you  any  conversation  with 
him?" 

"Some  — yes." 

'  Well,  it  left  not  the  least  impression  upon  him. 
What  did  you  talk  about?" 


200  Following  the  Equator 

"  About  the  fox.     I  think  that  was  all." 

4 '  Why,  that  would  interest  him ;  that  ought  to 
have  left  an  impression.  What  did  he  talk  about?" 

44  The  fox." 

"  It's  very  curious.  I  don't  understand  it.  Did 
what  he  said  leave  an  impression  upon  you?" 

44  Yes.  It  showed  me  that  he  was  a  quick  judge 
of  —  however,  I  will  tell  you  all  about  it,  then  you 
will  understand.  It  was  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago 
— 1873  or  '74.  I  had  an  American  friend  in  Lon 
don  named  F.,  who  was  fond  of  hunting,  and  his 
friends  the  Blanks  invited  him  and  me  to  come  out 
to  a  hunt  and  be  their  guests  at  their  country  place. 
In  the  morning  the  mounts  were  provided,  but  when 
I  saw  the  horses  I  changed  my  mind  and  asked 
permission  to  walk.  I  had  never  seen  an  English 
hunter  before,  and  it  seemed  to  me  that  I  could 
hunt  a  fox  safer  on  the  ground.  I  had  always  been 
diffident  about  horses,  anyway,  even  those  of  the 
common  altitudes,  and  I  did  not  feel  competent  to 
hunt  on  a  horse  that  went  on  stilts.  So  then  Mrs. 
Blank  came  to  my  help  and  said  I  could  go  with  her 
in  the  dog-cart  and  we  would  drive  to  a  place  she 
knew  of,  and  there  we  should  have  a  good  glimpse 
of  the  hunt  as  it  went  by. 

' 4  When  we  got  to  that  place  I  got  out  and  went 
and  leaned  my  elbows  on  a  low  stone  wall  which 
enclosed  a  turfy  and  beautiful  great  field  with  heavy 
wood  on  all  its  sides  except  ours.  Mrs.  Blank  sat 
in  the  dog-cart  fifty  yards  away,  which  was  as  near 


Following  the  Equator  201 

as  she  could  get  with  the  vehicle.  I  was  full  of 
interest,  for  I  had  never  seen  a  fox-hunt.  I  waited, 
dreaming  and  imagining,  in  the  deep  stillness  and 
impressive  tranquillity  which  reigned  in  that  retired 
spot.  Presently,  from  away  off  in  the  forest  on  the 
left,  a  mellow  bugle-note  came  floating;  then  all  of 
a  sudden  a  multitude  of  dogs  burst  out  of  that  forest 
and  went  tearing  by  and  disappeared  in  the  forest 
on  the  right;  there  was  a  pause,  and  then  a  cloud  of 
horsemen  in  black  caps  and  crimson  coats  plunged 
out  of  the  left-hand  forest  and  went  flaming  across 
the  field  like  a  prairie-fire,  a  stirring  sight  to  see. 
There  was  one  man  ahead  of  the  rest,  and  he  came 
spurring  straight  at  me.  He  was  fiercely  excited. 
It  was  fine  to  see  him  ride ;  he  was  a  master  horse 
man.  He  came  like  a  storm  till  he  was  within  seven 
feet  of  me,  where  I  was  leaning  on  the  wall,  then  he 
stood  his  horse  straight  up  in  the  air  on  his  hind 
toe-nails,  and  shouted  like  a  demon : 

11  'Which  way 'd  the  fox  go?' 

"I  didn't  much  like  the  tone,  but  I  did  not  let 
on;  for  he  was  excited,  you  know.  But  I  was 
calm ;  so  I  said  softly,  and  without  acrimony : 

"'  Which  fox?' 

"It  seemed  to  anger  him.  I  don't  know  why; 
and  he  thundered  out: 

"  '  Which  fox?  Why,  the  fox!  Which  way  did 
the  fox  go?' 

"  I  said,  with  great  gentleness  —  even  argumenta- 
tively : 


202  Following  the  Equator 

"  *  If  you  could  be  a  little  more  definite  —  a  little 
less  vague  —  because  I  am  a  stranger,  and  there  are 
many  foxes,  as  you  will  know  even  better  than  I, 
and  unless  I  know  which  one  it  is  that  you  desire  to 
identify,  and — ' 

44  '  You're  certainly  the  damnedest  idiot  that  has 
escaped  in  a  thousand  years!'  and  he  snatched  his 
great  horse  around  as  easily  as  I  would  snatch  a  cat, 
and  was  away  like  a  hurricane.  A  very  excitable 
man. 

41 1  went  back  to  Mrs.  Blank,  and  she  was  excited, 
too  —  oh,  all  alive.  She  said: 

441  He  spoke  to  you  !  — didn't  he?' 

44  4  Yes,  it  is  what  happened.' 

44  4  I  knew  it !  I  couldn't  hear  what  he  said,  but  I 
knew  he  spoke  to  you  !  Do  you  know  who  it  was? 
It  was  Lord  C., —  and  he  is  Master  of  the  Buck- 
hounds  !  Tell  me  —  what  do  you  think  of  him?' 

41  4  Him?  Well,  for  sizing-up  a  stranger,  he's  got 
the  most  sudden  and  accurate  judgment  of  any  man 
I  ever  saw.' 

44  It  pleased  her.     I  thought  it  would." 

G.  got  away  from  Nauheim  just  in  time  to  escape 
being  shut  in  by  the  quarantine-bars  on  the  fron 
tiers;  and  so  did  we,  for  we  left  the  next  day.  But 
G.  had  a  great  deal  of  trouble  in  getting  by  the 
Italian  custom-house,  and  we  should  have  fared  like 
wise  but  for  the  thoughtfulness  of  our  consul-general 
in  Frankfort.  He  introduced  me  to  the  Italian 
consul-general,  and  I  brought  away  from  that  con- 


Following  the  Equator  203 

sulate  a  letter  which  made  our  way  smooth.  It  was 
a  dozen  lines  merely  commending  me  in  a  general 
way  to  the  courtesies  of  servants  in  his  Italian 
Majesty's  service,  but  it  was  more  powerful  than  it 
looked.  In  addition  to  a  raft  of  ordinary  baggage, 
we  had  six  or  eight  trunks  which  were  filled  exclu 
sively  with  dutiable  stuff  —  household  goods  pur 
chased  in  Frankfort  for  use  in  Florence,  v/here  we 
had  taken  a  house.  I  was  going  to  ship  these 
through  by  express;  but  at  the  last  moment  an 
order  went  throughout  Germany  forbidding  the 
moving  of  any  parcels  by  train  unless  the  owner 
went  with  them.  This  was  a  bad  outlook.  We 
must  take  these  things  along,  and  the  delay  sure  to 
be  caused  by  the  examination  of  them  in  the  custom 
house  might  lose  us  our  train.  I  imagined  all  sorts 
of  terrors,  and  enlarged  them  steadily  as  we  ap 
proached  the  Italian  frontier.  We  were  six  in 
number,  clogged  with  all  that  baggage,  and  I  was 
courier  for  the  party  —  the  most  incapable  one  they 
ever  employed. 

We  arrived,  and  pressed  with  the  crowd  into  the 
immense  custom-house,  and  the  usual  worries  began ; 
everybody  crowding  to  the  center  and  begging  to 
have  his  baggage  examined  first,  and  all  hands  clat 
tering  and  chattering  at  once.  It  seemed  to  me  that 
I  could  do  nothing ;  it  would  be  better  to  give  it  all 
up  and  go  away  and  leave  the  baggage.  I  couldn't 
speak  the  language ;  I  should  never  accomplish  any 
thing.  Just  then  a  tall,  handsome  man  in  a  fine 


204  Following  the  Equator 

uniform  was  passing  by,  and  I  knew  he  must  be  the 
station-master  —  and  that  reminded  me  of  my  letter. 
I  ran  to  him  and  put  it  into  his  hands.  He  took  it 
out  of  the  envelope,  and  the  moment  his  eye  caught 
the  royal  coat  of  arms  printed  at  its  top,  he  took  off 
his  cap  and  made  a  beautiful  bow  to  me,  and  said 
in  English : 

'  *  Which  is  your  baggage  ?  Please  show  it  to 
me." 

I  showed   him  the   mountain.     Nobody  was  dis 
turbing   it;    nobody   was    interested    in    it;    all    the 
family's  attempts  to  get  attention  to  it  had  failed  — 
except  in  the  case  of  one  of  the  trunks  containing 
the  dutiable  goods.     It  was  just  being  opened.     My 
officer  said : 

"There,  let  that  alone!  Lock  it.  Now  chalk 
it.  Chalk  all  of  the  lot.  Now  please  come  and 
show  me  the  hand-baggage." 

He  plowed  through  the  waiting  crowd,  I  follow 
ing,  to  the  counter,  and  he  gave  orders  again,  in  his 
emphatic  military  way : 

II  Chalk  these.     Chalk  all  of  them." 

Then  he  took  off  his  cap  and  made  that  beautiful 
bow  again,  and  went  his  way.  By  this  time  these 
attentions  had  attracted  the  wonder  of  that  acre  of 
passengers,  and  the  whisper  had  gone  around  that 
the  royal  family  were  present  getting  their  baggage 
chalked ;  and  as  we  passed  down  in  review  on  our 
way  to  the  door,  I  was  conscious  of  a  pervading 
atmosphere  of  envy  which  gave  me  deep  satisfaction. 


Following  the  Equator  205 

But  soon  there  was  an  accident.  My  overcoat 
pockets  were  stuffed  with  German  cigars  and  linen 
packages  of  American  smoking  tobacco,  and  a 
porter  was  following  us  around  with  this  overcoat 
on  his  arm,  and  gradually  getting  it  upside  down. 
Just  as  I,  in  the  rear  of  my  family,  moved  by  the 
sentinels  at  the  door,  about  three  hatfuls  of  the 
tobacco  tumbled  out  on  the  floor.  One  of  the 
soldiers  pounced  upon  it,  gathered  it  up  in  his  arms, 
pointed  back  whence  I  had  come,  and  marched  me 
ahead  of  him  past  that  long  wall  of  passengers 
again  —  he  chattering  and  exulting  like  a  devil,  they 
smiling  in  peaceful  joy,  and  I  trying  to  look  as  if 
my  pride  was  not  hurt,  and  as  if  I  did  not  mind 
being  brought  to  shame  before  these  pleased  people 
who  had  so  lately  envied  me.  But  at  heart  I  was 
cruelly  humbled. 

When  I  had  been  marched  two-thirds  of  the  long 
distance  and  the  misery  of  it  was  at  the  worst,  the 
stately  station-master  stepped  out  from  somewhere, 
and  the  soldier  left  me  and  darted  after  him  and 
overtook  him;  and  I  could  see  by  the  soldier's 
excited  gestures  that  he  was  betraying  to  him 
the  whole  shabby  business.  The  station-master  was 
plainly  very  angry.  He  came  striding  down  toward 
me,  and  when  he  was  come  near  he  began  to  pour 
out  a  stream  of  indignant  Italian ;  then  suddenly 
took  off  his  hat  and  made  that  beautiful  bow  and 
said : 

"  Oh,  it  \syou  !    I  beg  a  thousand  pardons  !    This 


206  Following  the  Equator 

idiot  here — "  He  turned  to  the  exulting  soldier 
and  burst  out  with  a  flood  of  white-hot  Italian  lava, 
and  the  next  moment  he  was  bowing,  and  the 
soldier  and  I  were  moving  in  procession  again  —  he 
in  the  lead  and  ashamed,  this  time,  I  with  my  chin 
up.  And  so  we  marched  by  the  crowd  of  fascinated 
passengers,  and  I  went  forth  to  the  train  with  the 
honors  of  war.  Tobacco  and  all. 


CHAPTER   XXI. 

Man  will  do  many  things  to  get  himself  loved,  he  will  do  all  things  to  get 
himself  envied.  —  Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

BEFORE  I  saw  Australia  I  had  never  heard  of  the 
'*  weet-weet  "  at  all.  I  met  but  few  men  who 
had  seen  it  thrown  —  at  least  I  met  but  few  who 
mentioned  having  seen  it  thrown.  Roughly  de 
scribed,  it  is  a  fat  wooden  cigar  with  its  butt-end 
fastened  to  a  flexible  twig.  The  whole  thing  is  only 
a  couple  of  feet  long,  and  weighs  less  than  two 
ounces.  This  feather  —  so  to  call  it — is  not  thrown 
through  the  air,  but  is  flung  with  an  underhanded 
throw  and  made  to  strike  the  ground  a  little  way  in 
front  of  the  thrower;  then  it  glances  and  makes  a 
long  skip;  glances  again,  skips  again,  and  again  and 
again,  like  the  flat  stone  which  a  boy  sends  skating 
over  the  water.  The  water  is  smooth,  and  the  stone 
has  a  good  chance ;  so  a  strong  man  may  make  it 
travel  fifty  or  seventy-five  yards ;  but  the  weet-weet 
has  no  such  good  chance,  for  it  strikes  sand,  grass, 
and  earth  in  its  course.  Yet  an  expert  aboriginal 
has  sent  it  a  measured  distance  of  two  hundred  and 
twenty  yards.  It  would  have  gone  even  further,  but 
it  encountered  rank  ferns  and  underwood  on  its 

(207) 


208  Following  the  Equator 

passage  and  they  damaged  its  speed.  Two  hundred 
and  twenty  yards ;  and  so  weightless  a  toy  —  a 
mouse  on  the  end  of  a  bit  of  wire,  in  effect;  and  not 
sailing  through  the  accommodating  air,  but  en 
countering  grass  and  sand  and  stuff  at  every  jump. 
It  looks  wholly  impossible;  but  Mr.  Brough  Smyth 
saw  the  feat  and  did  the  measuring,  and  set  down  the 
facts  in  his  book  about  aboriginal  life,  which  he 
wrote  by  command  of  the  Victorian  Government. 

What  is  the  secret  of  the  feat?  No  one  explains. 
It  cannot  be  physical  strength,  for  that  could  not 
drive  such  a  feather-weight  any  distance.  It  must 
be  art.  But  no  one  explains  what  the  art  of  it  is ; 
nor  how  it  gets  around  that  law  of  nature  which  says 
you  shall  not  throw  any  two-ounce  thing  220  yards, 
either  through  the  air  or  bumping  along  the  ground. 
Rev.  J.  G.  Wood  says: 

"The  distance  to  which  the  weet-weet  or  kangaroo-rat  can  be 
thrown  is  truly  astonishing.  I  have  seen  an  Australian  stand  at  one  side 
of  Kennington  Oval  and  throw  the  kangaroo-rat  completely  across  it." 
(Width  of  Kennington  Oval  not  stated.)  "It  darts  through  the  air 
with  the  sharp  and  menacing  hiss  of  a  rifle-ball,  its  greatest  height  from 

the   ground  being  some  seven  or  eight  feet When 

properly  thrown  it  looks  just  like  a  living  animal  leaping  along.  .  .  . 
.  .  Its  movements  have  a  wonderful  resemblance  to  the  long  leaps  of 
a  kangaroo-rat  fleeing  in  alarm,  with  its  long  tail  trailing  behind  it." 

The  Old  Settler  said  that  he  had  seen  distances 
made  by  the  weet-weet,  in  the  early  days,  which 
almost  convinced  him  that  it  was  as  extraordinary 
an  instrument  as  the  boomerang. 

There  must  have  been  a  large  distribution  of  acute- 


Following  the  Equator  209 

ness  among  those  naked,  skinny  aboriginals,  or  they 
couldn't  have  been  such  unapproachable  trackers 
and  boomerangers  and  weet-weeters.  It  must  have 
been  race-aversion  that  put  upon  them  a  good  deal 
of  the  low-rate  intellectual  reputation  which  they 
bear  and  have  borne  this  long  time  in  the  world's 
estimate  of  them. 

They  were  lazy  —  always  lazy.  Perhaps  that  was 
their  trouble.  It  is  a  killing  defect.  Surely  they 
could  have  invented  and  built  a  competent  house, 
but  they  didn't.  And  they  could  have  invented  and 
developed  the  agricultural  arts,  but  they  didn't. 
They  went  naked  and  houseless,  and  lived  on  fish 
and  grubs  and  worms  and  wild  fruits,  and  were  just 
plain  savages,  for  all  their  smartness. 

With  a  country  as  big  as  the  United  States  to  live 
and  multiply  in,  and  with  no  epidemic  diseases 
among  them  till  the  white  man  came  with  those  and 
his  other  appliances  of  civilization,  it  is  quite  proba 
ble  that  there  was  never  a  day  in  his  history  when 
he  could  muster  100,000  of  his  race  in  all  Australia. 
He  diligently  and  deliberately  kept  population  down 
by  infanticide  —  largely;  but  mainly  by  certain 
other  methods.  He  did  not  need  to  practice  these 
artificialities  any  more  after  the  white  man  came. 
The  white  man  knew  ways  of  keeping  down  popula 
tion  which  were  worth  several  of  his.  The  white 
man  knew  ways  of  reducing  a  native  population  80 
per  cent,  in  20  years.  The  native  had  never  seen 
anything  as  fine  as  that  before. 
14, 


210  Following  the  Equator 

For  example,  there  is  the  case  of  the  country  now 
called  Victoria  —  a  country  eighty  times  as  large 
as  Rhode  Island,  as  I  have  already  said.  By  the 
best  official  guess  there  were  4,500  aboriginals  in  it 
when  the  whites  came  along  in  the  middle  of  the 
'Thirties.  Of  these  I,OOO  lived  in  Gippsland,  a 
patch  of  territory  the  size  of  fifteen  or  sixteen 
Rhode  Islands :  they  did  not  diminish  as  fast  as 
some  of  the  other  communities;  indeed,  at  the  end 
of  forty  years  there  were  still  200  of  them  left. 
The  Geelong  tribe  diminished  more  satisfactorily: 
from  173  persons  it  faded  to  34  in  twenty  years;  at 
the  end  of  another  twenty  the  tribe  numbered  one 
person  altogether.  The  two  Melbourne  tribes  ^could 
muster  almost  300  when  the  white  man  came ;  they 
could  muster  but  twenty  thirty-seven  years  later,  in 
1875.  In  that  year  there  were  still  odds  and  ends 
of  tribes  scattered  about  the  colony  of  Victoria,  but 
I  was  told  that  natives  of  full  blood  are  very  scarce 
now.  It  is  said  that  the  aboriginals  continue  in 
some  force  in  the  huge  territory  called  Queensland. 

The  early  whites  were  not  used  to  savages.  They 
could  not  understand  the  primary  law  of  savage  life : 
that  if  a  man  do  you  a  wrong,  his  whole  tribe  is  re 
sponsible —  each  individual  of  it  —  and  you  may 
take  your  change  out  of  any  individual  of  it,  without 
bothering  to  seek  out  the  guilty  one.  When  a  white 
killed  an  aboriginal,  the  tribe  applied  the  ancient  law, 
and  killed  the  first  white  they  came  across.  To 
the  whites  this  was  a  monstrous  thing.  Extermina- 


Following  the  Equator  211 

tion  seemed  to  be  the  proper  medicine  for  such  crea 
tures  as  this.  They  did  not  kill  all  the  blacks,  but 
they  promptly  killed  enough  of  them  to  make  their 
own  persons  safe.  From  the  dawn  of  civilization 
down  to  this  day  the  white  man  has  always  used  that 
very  precaution.  Mrs.  Campbell  Praed  lived  in 
Queensland,  as  a  child,  in  the  early  days,  and  in  her 
"Sketches  of  Australian  Life"  we  get  informing 
pictures  of  the  early  struggles  of  the  white  and  the 
black  to  reform  each  other. 

Speaking  of  pioneer  days  in  the  mighty  wilderness 
of  Queensland,  Mrs.  Praed  says: 

"At  first  the  natives  retreated  before  the  whites;  and,  except  that 
they  every  now  and  then  speared  a  beast  in  one  of  the  herds,  gave  little 
cause  for  uneasiness.  But,  as  the  number  of  squatters  increased,  each 
one  taking  up  miles  of  country  and  bringing  two  or  three  men  in  his 
train,  so  that  shepherds'  huts  and  stockmen's  camps  lay  far  apart,  and 
defenseless  in  the  midst  of  hostile  tribes,  the  Blacks'  depredations 
became  more  frequent  and  murder  was  no  unusual  event. 

"The  loneliness  of  the  Australian  bush  can  hardly  be  painted  in 
words.  Here  extends  mile  after  mile  of  primeval  forest  where  perhaps 
foot  of  white  man  has  never  trod  —  interminable  vistas  where  the  euca 
lyptus  trees  rear  their  lofty  trunks  and  spread  forth  their  lanky  limbs, 
from  which  the  red  gum  oozes  and  hangs  in  fantastic  pendants  like 
crimson  stalactites;  ravines  along  the  sides  of  which  the  long-bladed 
grass  grows  rankly;  level  untimbered  plains  alternating  with  undulating 
tracts  of  pasture,  here  and  there  broken  by  a  stony  ridge,  steep  gully,  or 
dried-up  creek.  All  wild,  vast,  and  desolate;  all  the  same  monotonous 
gray  coloring,  except  where  the  wattle,  when  in  blossom,  shows  patches 
of  feathery  gold,  or  a  belt  of  scrub  lies  green,  glossy,  and  impenetrable 
as  Indian  jungle. 

"The  solitude  seems  intensified  by  the  strange  sounds  of  reptiles, 
birds,  and  insects,  and  by  the  absence  of  larger  creatures;  of  which  in 
the  daytime  the  only  audible  signs  are  the  stampede  of  a  herd  of  kanga 
roo,  or  the  rustle  of  a  wallabi,  or  a  dingo  stirring  the  grass  as  it  creeps 


212  Following  the  Equator 

to  its  lair.  But  there  are  the  whirring  of  locusts,  the  demoniac  chuckle 
of  the  laughing  jackass,  the  screeching  of  cockatoos  and  parrots,  the 
hissing  of  the  frilled  lizard,  and  the  buzzing  of  innumerable  insects  hid 
den  under  the  dense  undergrowth.  And  then  at  night,  the  melancholy 
wailing  of  the  curlews,  the  dismal  howling  of  dingoes,  the  discordant 
croaking  of  tree-frogs,  might  well  shake  the  nerves  of  the  solitary 
watcher." 

That  is  the  theater  for  the  drama.  When  you 
comprehend  one  or  two  other  details,  you  will  per 
ceive  how  well  suited  for  trouble  it  was,  and  how 
loudly  it  invited  it.  The  cattlemen's  stations  were 
scattered  over  that  profound  wilderness  miles  and 
miles  apart  —  at  each  station  half  a  dozen  persons. 
There  was  a  plenty  of  cattle,  the  black  natives  were 
always  ill-nourished  and  hungry.  The  land  be 
longed  to  them.  The  whites  had  not  bought  it,  and 
couldn't  buy  it;  for  the  tribes  had  no  chiefs,  nobody 
in  authority,  nobody  competent  to  sell  and  convey ; 
and  the  tribes  themselves  had  no  comprehension  of 
the  idea  of  transferable  ownership  of  land.  The 
ousted  owners  were  despised  by  the  white  interlopers, 
and  this  opinion  was  not  hidden  under  a  bushel. 
More  promising  materials  for  a  tragedy  could  not 
have  been  collated.  Let  Mrs.  Praed  speak: 

"At  Nie  Nie  station,  one  dark  night,  the  unsuspecting  hut-keeper, 
having,  as  he  believed,  secured  himself  against  assault,  was  lying 
wrapped  in  his  blankets  sleeping  profoundly.  The  Blacks  crept  stealthily 
down  the  chimney  and  battered  in  his  skull  while  he  slept." 

One  could  guess  the  whole  drama  from  that  little 
text.  The  curtain  was  up.  It  would  not  fall  until 
the  mastership  of  one  party  or  the  other  was  de 
termined  —  and  permanently : 


Following  the  Equator  213 

"  There  was  treachery  on  both  sides.  The  Blacks  killed  the  Whites 
when  they  found  them  defenseless,  and  the  Whites  slew  the  Blacks  in  a 
wholesale  and  promiscuous  fashion  which  offended  against  my  childish 
sense  of  justice.  .  .  .  They  were  regarded  as  little  above  the  level 
of  brutes,  and  in  some  cases  were  destroyed  like  vermin. 

"  Here  is  an  instance.  A  squatter,  whose  station  was  surrounded 
by  Blacks,  whom  he  suspected  to  be  hostile  and  from  whom  he  feared 
an  attack,  parleyed  with  them  from  his  house-door.  He  told  them  it 
was  Christmas-time  —  a  time  at  which  all  men,  black  or  white,  feasted; 
that  there  were  flour,  sugar-plums,  good  things  in  plenty  in  the  store, 
and  that  he  would  make  for  them  such  a  pudding  as  they  had  never 
dreamed  of  —  a  great  pudding  of  which  all  might  eat  and  be  filled. 
The  Blacks  listened  and  were  lost.  The  pudding  was  made  and  dis 
tributed.  Next  morning  there  was  howling  in  the  camp,  for  it  had  been 
sweetened  with  sugar  and  arsenic !  " 

The  white  man's  spirit  was  right,  but  his  method 
was  wrong.  His  spirit  was  the  spirit  which  the 
civilized  white  has  always  exhibited  toward  the 
savage,  but  the  use  of  poison  was  a  departure  from 
custom.  True,  it  was  merely  a  technical  departure, 
not  a  real  one;  still,  it  was  a  departure,  and  there 
fore  a  mistake,  in  my  opinion.  It  was  better, 
kinder,  swifter,  and  much  more  humane  than  a 
number  of  the  methods  which  have  been  sanctified 
by  custom,  but  that  does  not  justify  its  employment. 
That  is,  it  does  not  wholly  justify  it.  Its  unusual 
nature  makes  it  stand  out  and  attract  an  amount  of 
attention  which  it  is  not  entitled  to.  It  takes  hold 
upon  morbid  imaginations  and  they  work  it  up  into 
a  sort  of  exhibition  of  cruelty,  and  this  smirches  the 
good  name  of  our  civilization,  whereas  one  of  the 
old  harsher  methods  would  have  had  no  such  effect 
because  usage  has  made  those  methods  familiar  to 


214  Following  the  Equator 

us    and    innocent.     In    many    countries    we    have 
chained  the  savage  and  starved  him  to  death;   and 
this  we  do  not  care  for,  because  custom  has  inured 
us  to  it;  yet  a  quick  death  by  poison  is  lovingkind- 
ness  to  it.     In  many  countries  we  have  burned  the 
savage  at  the  stake ;   and  this  we  do   not  care  for, 
because  custom   has   inured   us  to   it;  yet  a  quick 
death    is  lovingkindness   to   it.     In  more  than  one 
country   we    have  hunted  the  savage  and  his  little 
children    and    their    mother    with    dogs    and    guns 
through  the  woods  and  swamps  for  an  afternoon's 
sport,    and    filled    the   region   with  happy    laughter 
over  their  sprawling  and  stumbling  flight,  and  their 
wild  supplications  for  mercy ;   but  this  method  we  do 
not  mind,  because  custom   has  inured  us  to  it;  yet 
a  quick  death  by  poison  is  lovingkindness  to  it.     In 
many  countries  we   have    taken   the    savage's    land 
from  him,  and  made  him  our  slave,  and  lashed  him 
every  day,  and  broken  his  pride,  and  made  death 
his  only  friend,  and  overworked  him  till  he  dropped 
in  his  tracks;   and  this  we  do  not  care  for,  because 
custom  has  inured  us  to   it;   yet  a   quick   death   by 
poison  is  lovingkindness  to  it.      In  the  Matabeleland 
to-day  —  why,  there  we  are  confining  ourselves  to 
sanctified  custom,    we    Rhodes-Beit    millionaires    in 
South  Africa  and   Dukes  in  London ;   and  nobody 
cares,  because  we  are  used  to  the  old  holy  customs, 
and  all  we  ask  is  that  no  notice-inviting  new  ones 
shall  be  intruded  upon  the  attention  of  our  comfort 
able   consciences.     -Mrs.  Praed  says  of  the  poisoner, 


Following  the  Equator  215 

"  That  squatter  deserves  to  have  his  name  handed 
down  to  the  contempt  of  posterity." 

I  am  sorry  to  hear  her  say  that.  I  myself  blame 
him  for  one  thing,  and  severely,  but  I  stop  there.  I 
blame  him  for  the  indiscretion  of  introducing  a 
novelty  which  was  calculated  to  attract  attention  to 
our  civilization.  There  was  no  occasion  to  do  that. 
It  was  his  duty,  and  it  is  every  loyal  man's  duty,  to 
protect  that  heritage  in  every  way  he  can ;  and  the 
best  way  to  do  that  is  to  attract  attention  elsewhere. 
The  squatter's  judgment  was  bad  —  that  is  plain; 
but  his  heart  was  right.  He  is  almost  the  only 
pioneering  representative  of  civilization  in  history  who 
has  risen  above  the  prejudices  of  his  caste  and  his 
heredity  and  tried  to  introduce  the  element  of  mercy 
into  the  superior  race's  dealings  with  the  savage. 
His  name  is  lost,  and  it  is  a  pity ;  for  it  deserves  to 
be  handed  down  to  posterity  with  homage  and 
reverence. 

This  paragraph  is  from  a  London  journal : 

"To  learn  what  France  is  doing  to  spread  the  blessings  of  civiliza 
tion  in  her  distant  dependencies  we  may  turn  with  advantage  to  New 
Caledonia.  With  a  view  to  attracting  free  settlers  to  that  penal  colony, 
M.  Feillet,  the  Governor,  forcibly  expropriated  the  Kanaka  cultivators 
from  the  best  of  their  plantations,  with  a  derisory  compensation,  in  spite 
of  the  protests  of  the  Council  General  of  the  island.  Such  immigrants 
as  could  be  induced  to  cross  the  seas  thus  found  themselves  in  possession 
of  thousands  of  coffee,  cocoa,  banana,  and  bread-fruit  trees,  the  raising 
of  which  had  cost  the  wretched  natives  years  of  toil,  whilst  the  latter  had 
a  few  five- franc  pieces  to  spend  in  the  liquor  stores  of  Noumea." 

You  observe  the  combination?  It  is  robbery, 
humiliation,  and  slow,  slow  murder,  through  poverty 


216  Following  the  Equator 

and  the  white  man's  whisky.  The  savage's  gentle 
friend,  the  savage's  noble  friend,  the  only  magnani 
mous  and  unselfish  friend  the  savage  has  ever  had, 
was  not  there  with  the  merciful  swift  release  of  his 
poisoned  pudding. 

There  are  many  humorous  things  in  the  world ; 
among  them  the  white  man's  notion  that  he  is  less 
savage  than  the  other  savages.* 


*  See  Chapter  on  Tasmania,  post. 


CHAPTER   XXII. 

Nothing  is  so  ignorant  as  a  man's  left  hand,  except  a  lady's  watch. 

— Pudd'nhcad  Wilson1  s  Newt  Calendar. 

YOU  notice  that  Mrs.  Praed  knows  her  art.  She 
can  place  a  thing  before  you  so  that  you  can 
see  it.  She  is  not  alone  in  that.  Australia  is  fertile 
in  writers  whose  books  are  faithful  mirrors  of  the  life 
of  the  country  and  of  its  history.  The  materials 
were  surprisingly  rich,  both  in  quality  and  in 
mass,  and  Marcus  Clarke,  Rolf  Boldrewood,  Gordon, 
Kendall,  and  the  others,  have  built  out  of  them  a 
brilliant  and  vigorous  literature,  and  one  which 
must  endure.  Materials  —  there  is  no  end  to  them! 
Why,  a  literature  might  be  made  out  of  the  aboriginal 
all  by  himself,  his  character  and  ways  are  so  freckled 
with  varieties  —  varieties  not  staled  by  familiarity, 
but  new  to  us.  You  do  not  need  to  invent  any 
picturesquenesses ;  whatever  you  want  in  that  line 
he  can  furnish  you ;  and  they  will  not  be  fancies  and 
doubtful,  but  realities  and  authentic.  In  his  his 
tory,  as  preserved  by  the  white  man's  official  records, 
he  is  everything  —  everything  that  a  human  creature 
can  be.  He  covers  the  entire  ground.  He  is  a 

(217) 


218  Following  the  Equator 

coward  —  there  are  a  thousand  facts  to  prove  it. 
He  is  brave  —  there  are  a  thousand  facts  to  prove  it. 
He  is  treacherous  —  oh,  beyond  imagination!  he 
is  faithful,  loyal,  true  —  the  white  man's  records  sup 
ply  you  with  a  harvest  of  instances  of  it  that  are 
noble,  worshipful,  and  pathetically  beautiful.  He 
kills  the  starving  stranger  who  comes  begging  for 
food  and  shelter  —  there  is  proof  of  it.  He  suc 
cors,  and  feeds,  and  guides  to  safety,  to-day,  the 
lost  stranger  who  fired  on  him  only  yesterday  — 
there  is  proof  of  it.  He  takes  his  reluctant  bride  by 
force,  he  courts  her  with  a  club,  then  loves  her 
faithfully  through  a  long  life  —  it  is  of  record.  He 
gathers  to  himself  another  wife  by  the  same  pro 
cesses,  beats  and  bangs  her  as  a  daily  diversion,  and 
by  and  by  lays  down  his  life  in  defending  her  from 
some  outside  harm  —  it  is  of  record.  He  will  face 
a  hundred  hostiles  to  rescue  one  of  his  children,  and 
will  kill  another  of  his  children  because  the  family 
is  large  enough  without  it.  His  delicate  stomach 
turns,  at  certain  details  of  the  white  man's  food; 
but  he  likes  over-ripe  fish,  and  braised  dog,  and  cat, 
and  rat,  and  will  eat  his  own  uncle  with  relish.  He 
is  a  sociable  animal,  yet  he  turns  aside  and  hides 
behind  his  shield  when  his  mother-in-law  goes  by. 
He  is  childishly  afraid  of  ghosts  and  other  trivialities 
that  menace  his  soul,  but  dread  of  physical  pain  is  a 
weakness  which  he  is  not  acquainted  with.  He 
knows  all  the  great  and  many  of  the  little  constella 
tions,  and  has  names  for  them ;  he  has  a  symbol- 


Following  the  Equator  219 

writing  by  means  of  which  he  can  convey  messages 
far  and  wide  among  the  tribes ;  he  has  a  correct  eye 
for  form  and  expression,  and  draws  a  good  picture; 
he  can  track  a  fugitive  by  delicate  traces  which  the 
white  man's  eye  cannot  discern,  and  by  methods 
which  the  finest  white  intelligence  cannot  master; 
he  makes  a  missile  which  science  itself  cannot  dupli 
cate  without  the  model  —  if  with  it ;  a  missile  whose 
secret  baffled  and  defeated  the  searchings  and  theoriz- 
ings  of  the  white  mathematicians  for  seventy  years : 
and  by  an  art  all  his  own  he  performs  miracles  with 
it  which  the  white  man  cannot  approach  untaught, 
nor  parallel  after  teaching.  Within  certain  limits 
this  savage's  intellect  is  the  alertest  and  the  brightest 
known  to  history  or  tradition ;  and  yet  the  poor 
creature  was  never  able  to  invent  a  counting  system 
that  would  reach  above  five,  nor  a  vessel  that  he 
could  boil  water  in.  He  is  the  prize-curiosity  of  all 
the  races.  To  all  intents  and  purposes  he  is  dead 
—  in  the  body ;  but  he  has  features  that  will  live  in 
literature. 

Mr.  Philip  Chauncy,  an  officer  of  the  Victorian 
Government,  contributed  to  its  archives  a  report  of 
his  personal  observations  of  the  aboriginals  which 
has  in  it  some  things  which  I  wish  to  condense 
slightly  and  insert  here.  He  speaks  of  the  quick 
ness  of  their  eyes  and  the  accuracy  of  their  judgment 
of  the  direction  of  approaching  missiles  as  being 
quite  extraordinary,  and  of  the  answering  supple 
ness  and  accuracy  of  limb  and  muscle  in  avoiding 


220  Following  the  Equator 

the  missile  as  being  extraordinary  also.  He  has 
seen  an  aboriginal  stand  as  a  target  for  cricket-balls 
thrown  with  great  force  ten  or  fifteen  yards,  by  pro 
fessional  bowlers,  and  successfully  dodge  them  or 
parry  them  with  his  shield  during  about  half  an  hour. 
One  of  those  balls,  properly  placed,  could  have  killed 
him;  "Yet  he  depended,  with  the  utmost  self-pos 
session,  on  the  quickness  of  his  eye  and  his  agility." 

The  shield  was  the  customary  war-shield  of  his 
race,  and  would  not  be  a  protection  to  you  or  to  me. 
It  is  no  broader  than  a  stovepipe,  and  is  about  as 
long  as  a  man's  arm.  The  opposing  surface  is  not 
flat,  but  slopes  away  from  the  center-line  like  a 
boat's  bow.  The  difficulty  about  a  cricket-ball  that 
has  been  thrown  with  a  scientific  "twist"  is,  that 
it  suddenly  changes  its  course  when  it  is  close  to  its 
target  and  comes  straight  for  the  mark  when  appar 
ently  it  was  going  overhead  or  to  one  side.  I  should 
not  be  able  to  protect  myself  from  such  balls  for 
half-an-hour,  or  less. 

Mr.  Chauncy  once  saw  "a  little  native  man" 
throw  a  cricket-ball  1 19  yards.  This  is  said  to  beat 
the  English  professional  record  by  thirteen  yards. 

We  have  all  seen  the  circus-man  bound  into  the 
air  from  a  spring-board  and  make  a  somersault  over 
eight  horses  standing  side  by  side.  Mr.  Chauncy 
saw  an  aboriginal  do  it  over  eleven ;  and  was  assured 
that  he  had  sometimes  done  it  over  fourteen.  But 
what  is  that  to  this : 

"  I  saw  the  same  man  leap  from  the  ground,  and  in  going  over  he 


Following  the  Equator  221 

dipped  his  head,  unaided  by  his  hands,  into  a  hat  placed  in  an  inverted 
position  on  the  top  of  the  head  of  another  man  sitting  upright  on  horse' 
back  —  both  man  and  horse  being  of  the  average  size.  The  native 
landed  on  the  other  side  of  the  horse  with  the  hat  fairly  on  his  head. 
The  prodigious  height  of  the  leap,  and  the  precision  with  which  it  was 
taken  so  as  to  enable  him  to  dip  his  head  into  the  hat,  exceeded  any 
feat  of  the  kind  I  have  ever  beheld." 

I  should  think  so  !  On  board  a  ship  lately  I  saw 
a  young  Oxford  athlete  run  four  steps  and  spring 
into  the  air  and  squirm  his  hips  by  a  side-twist  over 
a  bar  that  was  five  and  one-half  feet  high ;  but  he 
could  not  have  stood  still  and  cleared  a  bar  that  was 
four  feet  high.  I  know  this,  because  I  tried  it 
myself. 

One  can  see  now  where  the  kangaroo  learned  its  art. 

Sir  George  Grey  and  Mr.  Eyre  testify  that  the 
natives  dug  wells  fourteen  or  fifteen  feet  deep  and 
two  feet  in  diameter  at  the  bore  —  dug  them  in  the 
sand — wells  that  were  "quite  circular,  carried 
straight  down,  and  the  work  beautifully  executed." 

Their  tools  were  their  hands  and  feet.  How  did 
they  throw  sand  out  from  such  a  depth?  How 
could  they  stoop  down  and  get  it,  with  only  two 
feet  of  space  to  stoop  in?  How  did  they  keep  that 
sand-pipe  from  caving  in  on  them?  I  do  not  know. 
Still,  they  did  manage  those  seeming  impossibilities. 
Swallowed  the  sand,  maybe. 

Mr.  Chauncy  speaks  highly  of  the  patience  and 
skill  and  alert  intelligence  of  the  native  huntsman 
when  he  is  stalking  the  emu,  the  kangaroo,  and 
other  game : 


222  Following  the  Equator 

"As  he  walks  through  the  bush  his  step  is  light,  elastic,  and  noise 
less  ;  every  track  on  the  earth  catches  his  keen  eye  ;  a  leaf,  or  fragment 
of  a  stick  turned,  or  a  blade  of  grass  recently  bent  by  the  tread  of  one 
of  the  lower  animals,  instantly  arrests  his  attention ;  in  fact,  nothing 
escapes  his  quick  and  powerful  sight  on  the  ground,  in  the  trees,  or  in 
the  distance,  which  may  supply  him  with  a  meal  or  warn  him  of  danger. 
A  little  examination  of  the  trunk  of  a  tree  which  may  be  nearly  covered 
with  the  scratches  of  opossums  ascending  and  descending  is  sufficient  to 
inform  him  whether  one  went  up  the  night  before  "without  coming  down 
again  or  not." 

Fenimore  Cooper  lost  his  chance.  He  would 
have  known  how  to  value  these  people.  He  wouldn't 
have  traded  the  dullest  of  them  for  the  brightest 
Mohawk  he  ever  invented. 

All  savages  draw  outline  pictures  upon  bark ;  but 
the  resemblances  are  not  close,  and  expression  is 
usually  lacking.  But  the  Australian  aboriginal's 
pictures  of  animals  were  nicely  accurate  in  form, 
attitude,  carriage;  and  he  put  spirit  into  them,  and 
expression.  And  his  pictures  of  white  people  and 
natives  were  pretty  nearly  as  good  as  his  pictures 
of  the  other  animals.  He  dressed  his  whites  in  the 
fashion  of  their  day,  both  the  ladies  and  the  gentle 
men.  As  an  untaught  wielder  of  the  pencil  it  is  not 
likely  that  he  has  his  equal  among  savage  people. 

His  place  in  art  —  as  to  drawing,  not  color-work 
—  is  well  up,  all  things  considered.  His  art  is  not 
to  be  classified  with  savage  art  at  all,  but  on  a 
plane  two  degrees  above  it  and  one  degree  above  the 
lowest  plane  of  civilized  art.  To  be  exact,  his  place 
in  art  is  between  Botticelli  and  Du  Maurier.  That  is 
to  say,  he  could  not  draw  as  well  as  Du  Maurier  but 


Following  the  Equator  223 

better  than  Botticelli.  In  feeling,  he  resembles 
both ;  also  in  grouping  and  in  his  preferences  in  the 
matter  of  subjects.  His  "  corrobboree  "  of  the 
Australian  wilds  reappears  in  Du  Maurier's  Bel- 
gravian  ballrooms,  with  clothes  and  the  smirk  of 
civilization  added;  Botticelli's  "  Spring"  is  the  cor 
robboree  further  idealized,  but  with  fewer  clothes  and 
more  smirk.  And  well  enough  as  to  intention,  but 
—  my  word  ! 

The  aboriginal  can  make  a  fire  by  friction.  I 
have  tried  that. 

All  savages  are  able  to  stand  a  good  deal  of  physical 
pain.  The  Australian  aboriginal  has  this  quality  in 
a  well-developed  degree.  Do  not  read  the  follow 
ing  instances  if  horrors  are  not  pleasant  to  you. 
They  were  recorded  by  the  Rev.  Henry  N.  Wolloston, 
of  Melbourne,  who  had  been  a  surgeon  before  he 
became  a  clergyman : 

i.  "In  the  summer  of  1852  I  started  on  horseback  from  Albany, 
King  George's  Sound,  to  visit  at  Cape  Riche,  accompanied  by  a  native 
on  foot.  We  traveled  about  forty  miles  the  first  day,  then  camped  by  a 
water-hole  for  the  night.  After  cooking  and  eating  our  supper,  I 
observed  the  native,  who  had  said  nothing  to  me  on  the  subject,  collect 
the  hot  embers  of  the  fire  together,  and  deliberately  place  his  right  foot 
in  the  glowing  mass  for  a  moment,  then  suddenly  withdraw  it,  stamping 
on  the  ground  and  uttering  a  long-drawn  guttural  sound  of  mingled  pain 
and  satisfaction.  This  operation  he  repeated  several  times.  On  my 
inquiring  the  meaning  of  his  strange  conduct,  he  only  said,  '  Me  car 
penter-make  'em  (*  I  am  mending  my  foot '),  and  then  showed  me  his 
charred  great  toe,  the  nail  of  which  had  been  torn  off  by  a  tea-tree 
stump,  in  which  it  had  been  caught  during  the  journey,  and  the  pain  of 
which  he  had  borne  with  stoical  composure  until  the  evening,  when  he 
had  an  opportunity  of  cauterizing  the  wound  in  the  primitive  manner 
above  described." 


224  Following  the  Equator 

And  he  proceeded  on  the  journey  the  next  day, 
"  as  if  nothing  had  happened  " — and  walked  thirty 
miles.  It  was  a  strange  idea,  to  keep  a  surgeon  and 
then  do  his  own  surgery. 

2.  "  A  native  about  twenty-five  years  of  age  once  applied  to  me,  as 
a  doctor,  to  extract  the  wooden  barb  of  a  spear,  which,  during  a  fight  in 
the  bush  some  four  months  previously,  had  entered  his  chest,  just  miss 
ing  the  heart,  and  penetrated  the  viscera  to  a  considerable  depth.     The 
spear  had  been  cut  off,  leaving  the  barb  behind,  which  continued  to 
force  its  way  by  muscular  action  gradually  toward  the  back;   and  when 
I  examined  him  I  could  feel  a  hard  substance  between  the  ribs  below 
the  left  blade-bone.     I  made  a  deep  incision,  and  with  a  pair  of  forceps 
extracted  the  barb,  which  was  made,  as  usual,  of  hard  wood  about  four 
inches  long  and  from  half  an  inch  to  an  inch  thick.     It  was  very  smooth, 
and  partly  digested,  so  to  speak,  by  the  maceration  to  which  it  had  been 
exposed  during  its  four  months'  journey  through  the  body.     The  wound 
made  by  the  spear  had  long  since  healed,  leaving  only  a  small  cicatrix; 
and  after  the  operation,  which  the  native  bore  without  flinching,  he 
appeared  to  suffer  no  pain.      Indeed,  judging  from  his  good  state  of 
health,  the  presence  of  the  foreign  matter  did  not  materially  annoy  him. 
He  was  perfectly  well  in  a  few  days." 

But  No.  3  is  my  favorite.  Whenever  I  read  it  I 
seem  to  enjoy  all  that  the  patient  enjoyed  —  what 
ever  it  was : 

3.  "  Once  at  King  George's  Sound  a  native  presented  himself  to 
me  with  one  leg  only,  and  requested  me  to  supply  him  with  a  wooden 
leg.     He  had  traveled  in  this  maimed  state  about  ninety-six  miles,  for 
this  purpose.     I  examined  the  limb,  which  had  been  severed  just  below 
the  knee,  and  found  that  it  had  been  charred  by  fire,  while  about  two 
inches  of  the  partially  calcined  bone  protruded  through  the  flesh.     I  at 
once  removed  this  with  the  saw;    and  having  made  as  presentable  a 
stump  of  it  as  I  could,  covered  the  amputated  end  of  the  bone  with  a 
surrounding  of  muscle,  and  kept  the  patient  a  few  days  under  my  care 
to  allow  the  wound  to  heal.     On  inquiring,  the  native  told  me  that  in  a 
fight  with  other  blackfellows  a  spear  had  struck  his  leg  and  penetrated 


Following  the  Equator  225 

the  bone  below  the  knee.  Finding  it  was  serious,  he  had  recourse  to 
the  following  crude  and  barbarous  operation,  which  it  appears  is  not 
uncommon  among  these  people  in  their  native  state.  He  made  a  fire, 
and  dug  a  hole  in  the  earth  only  sufficiently  large  to  admit  his  leg,  and 
deep  enough  to  allow  the  wounded  part  to  be  on  a  level  with  the  surface 
of  the  ground.  He  then  surrounded  the  limb  with  the  live  coals  or 
charcoal,  which  was  replenished  until  the  leg  was  literally  burnt  off. 
The  cauterization  thus  applied  completely  checked  the  hemorrhage,  and 
he  was  able  in  a  day  or  two  to  hobble  down  to  the  Sound,  with  the  aid 
of  a  long  stout  stick,  although  he  was  more  than  a  week  on  the  road." 

But  he  was  a  fastidious  native.  He  soon  discarded 
the  wooden  leg  made  for  him  by  the  doctor,  because 
"it  had  no  feeling  in  it."  It  must  have  had  as 
much  as  the  one  he  burnt  off,  I  should  think. 

So  much  for  the  Aboriginals.  It  is  difficult  for 
me  to  let  them  alone.  They  are  marvelously  inter 
esting  creatures.  For  a  quarter  of  a  century,  now, 
the  several  colonial  governments  have  housed  their 
remnants  in  comfortable  stations,  and  fed  them  well 
and  taken  good  care  of  them  in  every  way.  If  I  had 
found  this  out  while  I  was  in  Australia  I  could  have 
seen  some  of  those  people  —  but  I  didn't.  I  would 
walk  thirty  miles  to  see  a  stuffed  one. 

Australia  has  a  slang  of  its  own.  This  is  a  matter 
of  course.  The  vast  cattle  and  sheep  industries, 
the  strange  aspects  of  the  country,  and  the  strange 
native  animals,  brute  and  human,  are  matters  which 
would  naturally  breed  a  local  slang.  I  have  notes  of 
this  slang  somewhere,  but  at  the  moment  I  can  call 
to  mind  only  a  few  of  the  words  and  phrases.  They 
are  expressive  ones.  The  wide,  sterile,  unpeopled 
deserts  have  created  eloquent  phrases  like  "No 
15  » 


226  Following  the  Equator 

Man's  Land  "  and  the  "Never-never  Country" — 
also  this  felicitous  form :  ' '  She  lives  in  the  Never- 
never  Country  "  — that  is,  she  is  an  old  maid.  And 
this  one  is  not  without  merit:  "  heifer-paddock" — 
young  ladies'  seminary.  * '  Bail  up  ' '  and  * '  stick  up  ' ' 
—  equivalent  of  our  highwayman-term  to  *'  hold  up  " 
a  stage-coach  or  a  train.  "New-chum"  is  the 
equivalent  of  our  "  tenderfoot  " — new  arrival. 

And  then  there  is  the  immortal  '  *  My  word !  ' ' 
We  must  import  it.  "  M-y  word!"  In  cold  print 
it  is  the  equivalent  of  our  "  Gzr-reat  C&sar!" 
but  spoken  with  the  proper  Australian  unction  and 
fervency,  it  is  worth  six  of  it  for  grace  and  charm 
and  expressiveness.  Our  form  is  rude  and  explo 
sive  ;  it  is  not  suited  to  the  drawing-room  or  the 
heifer-paddock;  but  "  M-y  word !  "  is,  and  is  music 
to  the  ear,  too,  when  the  utterer  knows  how  to  say 
it.  I  saw  it  in  print  several  times  on  the  Pacific 
Ocean,  but  it  struck  me  coldly,  it  aroused  no  sym 
pathy.  That  was  because  it  was  the  dead  corpse  of 
the  thing,  the  soul  was  not  there  —  the  tones  were 
lacking  —  the  informing  spirit — the  deep  feeling  — 
the  eloquence.  But  the  first  time  I  heard  an  Austra 
lian  say  it,  it  was  positively  thrilling. 


CHAPTER    XXIII. 

* 

Be  careless  in  your  dress  if  you  must,  but  keep  a  tidy  soul. 

—Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

WE  left  Adelaide  in  due  course,  and  went  to 
Horsham,  in  the  colony  of  Victoria;  a  good 
deal  of  a  journey,  if  I  remember  rightly,  but  pleas 
ant.  Horsham  sits  in  a  plain  which  is  as  level  as  a 
floor — one  of  those  famous  dead  levels  which 
Australian  books  describe  so  often;  gray,  bare, 
somber,  melancholy,  baked,  cracked,  in  the  tedious 
long  drouths,  but  a  horizonless  ocean  of  vivid  green 
grass  the  day  after  a  rain.  A  country  town,  peace 
ful,  reposeful,  inviting,  full  of  snug  homes,  with 
garden  plots,  and  plenty  of  shrubbery  and  flowers. 
"Horsham,  October  77.  At  the  hotel.  The 
weather  divine.  Across  the  way,  in  front  of  the 
London  Bank  of  Australia,  is  a  very  handsome  cot- 
tonwood.  It  is  in  opulent  leaf,  and  every  leaf 
perfect.  The  full  power  of  the  on-rushing  spring 
is  upon  it,  and  I  imagine  I  can  see  it  grow.  Along 
side  the  bank  and  a  little  way  back  in  the  garden 
there  is  a  row  of  soaring  fountain-sprays  of  delicate 
feathery  foliage  quivering  in  the  breeze,  and  mottled 
o»  (227) 


228  Following  the  Equator 

with  flashes  of  light  that  shift  and  play  through  the 
mass  like  flash-lights  through  an  opal  —  a  most 
beautiful  tree,  and  a  striking  contrast  to  the  cotton- 
wood.  Every  leaf  of  the  cottonwood  is  distinctly 
defined  —  it  is  a  kodak  for  faithful,  hard,  unsenti 
mental  detail ;  the  other  an  impressionist  picture, 
delicious  to  look  upon,  full  of  a  subtle  and  exquisite 
charm,  but  all  details  fused  in  a  swoon  of  vague  and 
soft  loveliness." 

It  turned  out,  upon  inquiry,  to  be  a  pepper  tree 
—  an.  importation  from  China.  It  has  a  silky  sheen, 
soft  and  rich.  I  saw  some  that  had  long  red  bunches 
of  currant-like  berries  ambushed  among  the  foliage. 
At  a  distance,  in  certain  lights,  they  give  the  tree  a 
pinkish  tint  and  a  new  charm. 

There  is  an  agricultural  college  eight  miles  from 
Horsham.  We  were  driven  out  to  it  by  its  chief. 
The  conveyance  was  an  open  wagon;  the  time, 
noonday;  no  wind;  the  sky  without  a  cloud,  the 
sunshine  brilliant  —  and  the  mercury  at  92°  in  the 
shade.  In  some  countries  an  indolent  unsheltered 
drive  of  an  hour  and  a  half  under  such  conditions 
would  have  been  a  sweltering  and  prostrating  ex 
perience;  but  there  was  nothing  of  that  in  this  case. 
It  is  a  climate  that  is  perfect.  There  was  no  sense  of 
heat;  indeed,  there  was  no  heat;  the  air  was  fine 
and  pure  and  exhilarating;  if  the  drive  had  lasted 
half  a  day  I  think  we  should  not  have  felt  any  dis 
comfort,  or  grown  silent  or  droopy  or  tired.  Of 
course,  the  secret  of  it  was  the  exceeding  dryness  of 


Following  the  Equator  229 

the  atmosphere.  In  that  plain  112°  in  the  shade  is 
without  doubt  no  harder  upon  a  man  than  is  88°  or 
90°  in  New  York. 

The  road  lay  through  the  middle  of  an  empty  space 
which  seemed  to  me  to  be  a  hundred  yards  wide  be 
tween  the  fences.  I  was  not  given  the  width  in 
yards,  but  only  in  chains  and  perches  —  and  fur 
longs,  I  think.  I  would  have  given  a  good  deal  to 
know  what  the  width  was,  but  I  did  not  pursue  the 
matter.  I  think  it  is  best  to  put  up  with  informa 
tion  the  way  you  get  it ;  and  seem  satisfied  with  it, 
and  surprised  at  it,  and  grateful  for  it,  and  say, 
"My  word!"  and  never  let  on.  It  was  a  wide 
space;  I  could  tell  you  how  wide,  in  chains  and 
perches  and  furlongs  and  things,  but  that  would  not 
help  you  any.  Those  things  sound  well,  but  they 
are  shadowy  and  indefinite,  like  troy  weight  and 
avoirdupois ;  nobody  knows  what  they  mean.  When 
you  buy  a  pound  of  a  drug  and  the  man  asks  you 
which  you  want,  troy  or  avoirdupois,  it  is  best  to 
say  "  Yes,"  and  shift  the  subject. 

They  said  that  the  wide  space  dates  from  the 
earliest  sheep  and  cattle-raising  days.  People  had; 
to  drive  their  stock  long  distances  —  immense  jour 
neys  —  from  worn-out  places  to  new  ones  where 
were  water  and  fresh  pasturage ;  and  this  wide  space 
had  to  be  left  in  grass  and  unfenced,  or  the  stock 
would  have  starved  to  death  in  the  transit. 

On  the  way  we  saw  the  usual  birds  —  the  beautiful 
little  green  parrots,  the  magpie,  and  some  others; 


230  Following  the  Equator 

and  also  the  slender  native  bird  of  modest  plumage 
and  the  eternally-forgetable  name  —  the  bird  that  is 
the  smartest  among  birds,  and  can  give  a  parrot  30 
to  i  in  the  game  and  then  talk  him  to  death.  I  can 
not  recall  that  bird's  name.  I  think  it  begins  with 
M.  I  wish  it  began  with  G.  or  something  that  a 
person  can  remember. 

The  magpie  was  out  in  great  force,  in  the  fields 
and  on  the  fences.  He  is  a  handsome  large  creature, 
with  snowy  white  decorations,  and  is  a  singer ;  he  has 
a  murmurous  rich  note  that  is  lovel)*.  He  was  once 
modest,  even  diffident ;  but  he  lost  all  that  when  he 
found  out  that  he  was  Australia's  sole  musical  bird. 
He  has  talent,  and  cuteness,  and  impudence ;  and  in 
his  tame  state  he  is  a  most  satisfactory  pet — never 
coming  when  he  is  called,  always  coming  when  he 
isn't,  and  studying  disobedience  as  an  accomplish 
ment.  He  is  not  confined,  but  loafs  all  over  the 
house  and  grounds,  like  the  laughing  jackass.  I 
think  he  learns  to  talk,  I  know  he  learns  to  sing 
tunes,  and  his  friends  say  that  he  knows  how  to  steal 
without  learning.  I  was  acquainted  with  a  tame 
magpie  in  Melbourne.  He  had  lived  in  a  lady's 
house  several  years,  and  believed  he  owned  it.  The 
lady  had  tamed  him,  and  in  return  he  had  tamed  the 
lady.  He  was  always  on  deck  when  not  wanted, 
always  having  his  own  way,  always  tyrannizing  over 
the  dog,  and  always  making  the  cat's  life  a  slow  sor 
row  and  a  martyrdom.  He  knew  a  number  of  tunes 
and  could  sing  them  in  perfect  time  and  tune ;  and 


Following  the  Equator  231 

would  do  it,  too,  at  any  time  that  silence  was  wanted  ; 
and  then  encore  himself  and  do  it  again ;  but  if  he 
was  asked  to  sing  he  would  go  out  and  take  a  walk. 

It  was  long  believed  that  fruit  trees  would  not 
grow  in  that  baked  and  waterless  plain  around 
Horsham,  but  the  agricultural  college  has  dissipated 
that  idea.  Its  ample  nurseries  were  producing 
oranges,  apricots,  lemons,  almonds,  peaches,  cher 
ries,  48  varieties  of  apples  —  in  fact,  all  manner  of 
fruits,  and  in  abundance.  The  trees  did  not  seem 
to  miss  the  water ;  they  were  in  vigorous  and  flour 
ishing  condition. 

Experiments  are  made  with  different  soils,  to  see 
what  things  thrive  best  in  them  and  what  climates 
are  best  for  them.  A  man  who  is  ignorantly  trying 
to  produce  upon  his  farm  things  not  suited  to  its  soil 
and  its  other  conditions  can  make  a  journey  to  the 
college  from  anywhere  in  Australia,  and  go  back 
with  a  change  of  scheme  which  will  make  his  farm 
productive  and  profitable. 

There  were  forty  pupils  there  —  a  few  of  them 
farmers,  relearning  their  trade,  the  rest  young  men 
mainly  from  the  cities  —  novices.  It  seemed  a 
strange  thing  that  an  agricultural  college  should  have 
an  attraction  for  city-bred  youths,  but  such  is  the 
fact.  They  are  good  stuff,  too ;  they  are  above  the 
agricultural  average  of  intelligence,  and  they  come 
without  any  inherited  prejudices  in  favor  of  hoary 
ignorances  made  sacred  by  long  descent. 

The  students  work  all  day  in  the  fields,  the  nur- 


2}2  Following  the  Equator 

series,  and  the  shearing-sheds,  learning  and  doing  all 
the  practical  work  of  the  business  —  three  days  in  a 
week.  On  the  other  three  they  study  and  hear 
lectures.  They  are  taught  the  beginnings  of  such 
sciences  as  bear  upon  agriculture  —  like  chemistry, 
for  instance.  We  saw  the  sophomore  class  in  sheep- 
shearing  shear  a  dozen  sheep.  They  did  it  by  hand, 
not  with  the  machine.  The  sheep  was  seized  and 
flung  down  on  his  side  and  held  there;  and  the 
students  took  off  his  coat  with  great  celerity  and 
adroitness.  Sometimes  they  clipped  off  a  sample 
of  the  sheep,  but  that  is  customary  with  shearers, 
and  they  don't  mind  it;  they  don't  even  mind  it  as 
much  as  the  sheep.  They  dab  a  splotch  of  sheep- 
dip  on  the  place  and  go  right  ahead. 

The  coat  of  wool  was  unbelievably  thick.  Before 
the  shearing  the  sheep  looked  like  the  fat  woman  in 
the  circus;  after  it  he  looked  like  a  bench.  He  was 
clipped  to  the  skin;  and  smoothly  and  uniformly. 
The  fleece  comes  from  him  all  in  one  piece  and  has 
the  spread  of  a  blanket. 

The  college  was  flying  the  Australian  flag  —  the 
gridiron  of  England  smuggled  up  in  the  northwest 
corner  of  a  big  red  field  that  had  the  random  stars  of 
the  Southern  Cross  wandering  around  over  it. 

From  Horsham  we  went  to  Stawell.  By  rail.  Still 
in  the  colony  of  Victoria.  Stawell  is  in  the  gold- 
mining  country.  In  the  bank-safe  was  half  a  peck 
of  surface  gold  —  gold  dust,  grain  gold ;  rich ;  pure 
in  fact,  and  pleasant  to  sift  through  one's  fingers; 


Following  the  Equator  233 

and  would  be  pleasanter  if  it  would  stick.  And 
there  were  a  couple  of  gold  bricks,  very  heavy  to 
handle,  and  worth  $7,500  apiece.  They  were  from 
a  very  valuable  quartz  mine ;  a  lady  owns  two-thirds 
of  it;  she  has  an  income  of  $75,000  a  month  from 
it,  and  is  able  to  keep  house. 

The  Stawell  region  is  not  productive  of  gold  only ; 
it  has  great  vineyards,  and  produces  exceptionally 
fine  wines.  One  of  these  vineyards  —  the  Great 
Western,  owned  by  Mr.  Irving — is  regarded  as  a 
model.  Its  product  has  reputation  abroad.  It 
yields  a  choice  champagne  and  a  fine  claret,  and  its 
hock  took  a  prize  in  France  two  or  three  years  ago. 
The  champagne  is  kept  in  a  maze  of  passages  under 
ground,  cut  in  the  rock,  to  secure  it  an  even  temper 
ature  during  the  three-year  term  required  to  perfect 
it.  In  those  vaults  I  saw  120,000  bottles  of  cham 
pagne.  The  colony  of  Victoria  has  a  population  of 
1,000,000,  and  those  people  are  said  to  drink 
25,000,000  bottles  of  champagne  per  year.  The 
dryest  community  on  the  earth.  The  government 
has  lately  reduced  the  duty  upon  foreign  wines. 
That  is  one  of  the  unkindnesses  of  Protection.  A 
man  invests  years  of  work  and  a  vast  sum  of  money 
in  a  worthy  enterprise,  upon  the  faith  of  existing 
laws;  then  the  law  is  changed,  and  the  man  is 
robbed  by  his  own  government. 

On  the  way  back  to  Stawell  we  had  a  chance  to 
see  a  group  of  bowlders  called  the  Three  Sisters  —  a 
curiosity  oddly  located  ;  for  it  was  upon  high  ground, 


234  Following  the  Equator 

with  the  land  sloping  away  from  it,  and  no  height 
above  it  from  whence  the  bowlders  could  have 
rolled  down.  Relics  of  an  early  ice-drift,  perhaps. 
They  are  noble  bowlders.  One  of  them  has  the  size 
and  smoothness  and  plump  sphericity  of  a  balloon 
of  the  biggest  pattern.  The  road  led  through  a 
forest  of  great  gum-trees,  lean  and  scraggy  and  sor 
rowful.  The  road  was  cream-white  —  a  clayey  kind 
of  earth,  apparently. 

Along  it  toiled  occasional  freight  wagons,  drawn 
by  long  double  files  of  oxen.  Those  wagons  were 
going  a  journey  of  two  hundred  miles,  I  was  told, 
and  were  running  a  successful  opposition  to  the  rail 
way  !  The  railways  are  owned  and  run  by  the 
government. 

Those  sad  gums  stood  up  out  of  the  dry  white 
clay,  pictures  of  patience  and  resignation.  It  is  a 
tree  that  can  get  along  without  water;  still  it  is  fond 
of  it — ravenously  so.  It  is  a  very  intelligent  tree 
and  will  detect  the  presence  of  hidden  water  at  a 
distance  of  fifty  feet,  and  send  out  slender  long 
root-fibres  to  prospect  it.  They  will  find  it;  and 
will  also  get  at  it  —  even  through  a  cement  wall  six 
inches  thick.  Once  a  cement  water-pipe  under 
ground  at  Stawell  began  to  gradually  reduce  its  out 
put,  and  finally  ceased  altogether  to  deliver  water. 
Upon  examining  into  the  matter  it  was  found  stopped 
up,  wadded  compactly  with  a  mass  of  root  fibres, 
delicate  and  hair-like.  How  this  stuff  had  gotten 
into  the  pipe  was  a  puzzle  for  some  little  time; 


Following  the  Equator  235 

finally  it  was  found  that  it  had  crept  in  through  a 
crack  that  was  almost  invisible  to  the  eye.  A  gum 
tree  forty  feet  away  had  tapped  the  pipe  and  was 
drinking  the  water. 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

There  is  no  such  thing  as  "  the  Queen's  English."    The  property  has  gone 
into  the  hands  of  a  joint  stock  company  and  we  own  the  bulk  of  the  shares ! 

—Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

FREQUENTLY,  in  Australia,  one  has  cloud-effects 
I  of  an  unfamiliar  sort.  We  had  this  kind  of 
scenery,  finely  staged,  all  the  way  to  Ballarat.  Con 
sequently  we  saw  more  sky  than  country  on  that  jour 
ney.  At  one  time  a  great  stretch  of  the  vault  was 
densely  flecked  with  wee  ragged-edged  flakes  of 
painfully  white  cloud-stuff,  all  of  one  shape  and  size, 
and  equidistant  apart,  with  narrow  cracks  of  adorable 
blue  showing  between.  The  whole  was  suggestive  of 
a  hurricane  of  snow-flakes  drifting  across  the  skies. 
By  and  by  these  flakes  fused  themselves  together  in 
interminable  lines,  with  shady  faint  hollows  between 
the  lines,  the  long  satin-surfaced  rollers  following 
each  other  in  simulated  movement,  and  enchant- 
ingly  counterfeiting  the  majestic  march  of  a  flowing 
sea.  Later,  the  sea  solidified  itself;  then  gradually 
broke  up  its  mass  into  innumerable  lofty  white  pillars 
of  about  one  size,  and  ranged  these  across  the  firma 
ment,  in  receding  and  fading  perspective,  in  the  sim 
ilitude  of  a  stupendous  colonnade  —  a  mirage  without 
a  doubt  flung  from  the  far  Gates  of  the  Hereafter. 

(236) 


Following  the  Equator  237 

The  approaches  to  Ballarat  were  beautiful.  The 
features,  great  green  expanses  of  rolling  pasture- 
land,  bisected  by  eye-contenting  hedges  of  com 
mingled  new-gold  and  old-gold  gorse  —  and  a  lovely 
lake.  One  must  put  in  the  pause,  there,  to  fetch  the 
reader  up  with  a  slight  jolt,  and  keep  him  from  glid 
ing  by  without  noticing  the  lake.  One  must  notice 
it;  for  a  lovely  lake  is  not  as  common  a  thing  along 
the  railways  of  Australia  as  are  the  dry  places. 
Ninety-two  in  the  shade  again,  but  balmy  and  com 
fortable,  fresh  and  bracing.  A  perfect  climate. 

Forty-five  years  ago  the  site  now  occupied  by  the 
City  of  Ballarat  was  a  sylvan  solitude  as  quiet  as 
Eden  and  as  lovely.  Nobody  had  ever  heard  of  it. 
On  the  25th  of  August,  1851,  the  first  great  gold- 
strike  made  in  Australia  was  made  here.  The 
wandering  prospectors  who  made  it  scraped  up  two 
pounds  and  a  half  of  gold  the  first  day  —  worth  $600. 
A  few  days  later  the  place  was  a  hive  —  a  town. 
The  news  of  the  strike  spread  everywhere  in  a  sort 
of  instantaneous  way  —  spread  like  a  flash  to  the 
very  ends  of  the  earth.  A  celebrity  so  prompt  and 
so  universal  has  hardly  been  paralleled  in  history, 
perhaps.  It  was  as  if  the  name  BALLARAT  had 
suddenly  been  written  on  the  sky,  where  all  the 
world  could  read  it  at  once. 

The  smaller  discoveries  made  in  the  colony  of  New 
South  Wales  three  months  before  had  already  started 
emigrants  toward  Australia;  they  had  been  coming 
as  a  stream,  but  they  came  as  a  flood,  now.  A 


2j 8  Following  the  Equator 

hundred  thousand  people  poured  into  Melbourne 
from  England  and  other  countries  in  a  single  month, 
and  flocked  away  to  the  mines.  The  crews  of  the 
ships  that  brought  them  flocked  with  them;  the 
clerks  in  the  government  offices  followed ;  so  did  the 
cooks,  the  maids,  the  coachmen,  the  butlers,  and 
the  other  domestic  servants;  so  did  the  carpenters, 
the  smiths,  the  plumbers,  the  painters,  the  reporters, 
the  editors,  the  lawyers,  the  clients,  the  barkeepers, 
the  bummers,  the  blacklegs,  the  thieves,  the  loose 
women,  the  grocers,  the  butchers,  the  bakers,  the 
doctors,  the  druggists,  the  nurses;  so  did  the  police ; 
even  officials  of  high  and  hitherto  envied  place  threw 
up  their  positions  and  joined  the  procession.  This 
roaring  avalanche  swept  out  of  Melbourne  and  left  it 
desolate,  Sunday-like,  paralyzed,  everything  at  a 
stand-still,  the  ships  lying  idle  at  anchor,  all  signs  of 
life  departed,  all  sounds  stilled  save  the  rasping  of 
the  cloud-shadows  as  they  scraped  across  the  vacant 
streets. 

That  grassy  and  leafy  paradise  at  Ballarat  was  soon 
ripped  open,  and  lacerated  and  scarified  and  gutted, 
in  the  feverish  search  for  its  hidden  riches.  There 
is  nothing  like  surface-mining  to  snatch  the  graces 
and  beauties  and  benignities  out  of  a  paradise,  and 
make  an  odious  and  repulsive  spectacle  of  it. 

What  fortunes  were  made !  Immigrants  got  rich 
while  the  ship  unloaded  and  reloaded  —  and  went 
back  home  for  good  in  the  same  cabin  they  had 
come  out  in  !  Not  all  of  them.  Only  some.  I  saw 


Following  the  Equator  239 

the  others  in  Ballarat  myself,  forty-five  years  later 
—  what  were  left  of  them  by  time  and  death  and  the 
disposition  to  rove.  They  were  young  and  gay, 
then;  they  are  patriarchal  and  grave,  now;  and 
they  do  not  get  excited  any  more.  They  talk  of 
the  Past.  They  live  in  it.  Their  life  is  a  dream,  a 
retrospection. 

Ballarat  was  a  great  region  for  "nuggets."  No 
such  nuggets  were  found  in  California  as  Ballarat 
produced.  In  fact,  the  Ballarat  region  has  yielded 
the  largest  ones  known  to  history.  Two  of  them 
weighed  about  180  pounds  each,  and  together  were 
worth  $90,000.  They  were  offered  to  any  poor 
person  who  would  shoulder  them  and  carry  them 
away.  Gold  was  so  plentiful  that  it  made  people 
liberal  like  that. 

Ballarat  was  a  swarming  city  of  tents  in  the  early 
days.  Everybody  was  happy,  for  a  time,  and 
apparently  prosperous.  Then  came  trouble.  The 
government  swooped  down  with  a  mining  tax.  And 
in  its  worst  form,  too ;  for  it  was  not  a  tax  upon 
what  the  miner  had  taken  out,  but  upon  what  he  was 
going  to  take  out  —  if  he  could  find  it.  It  was  a 
license  tax  —  license  to  work  his  claim  —  and  it  had 
to  be  paid  before  he  could  begin  digging. 

Consider  the  situation.  No  business  is  so  uncer 
tain  as  surface-mining.  Your  claim  may  be  good, 
and  it  may  be  worthless.  It  may  make  you  well  off 
in  a  month ;  and  then  again  you  may  have  to  dig 
and  slave  for  half  a  year,  at  heavy  expense,  only  to 


240  Following  the  Equator 

find  out  at  last  that  the  gold  is  not  there  in  cost-pay 
ing  quantity,  and  that  your  time  and  your  hard  work 
have  been  thrown  away.  It  might  be  wise  policy  to 
advance  the  miner  a  monthly  sum  to  encourage  him 
to  develop  the  country's  riches;  but  to  tax  him 
monthly  in  advance  instead  —  why,  such  a  thing  was 
never  dreamed  of  in  America.  There,  neither  the 
claim  itself  nor  its  products,  howsoever  rich  or 
poor,  were  taxed. 

The  Ballarat  miners  protested,  petitioned,  com 
plained  —  it  was  of  no  use ;  the  government  held  its 
ground,  and  went  on  collecting  the  tax.  And  not 
by  pleasant  methods,  but  by  ways  which  must  have 
been  very  galling  to  free  people.  The  rumblings  of 
a  coming  storm  began  to  be  audible. 

By  and  by  there  was  a  result;  and  I  think  it  may 
be  called  the  finest  thing  in  Australasian  history.  It 
was  a  revolution  —  small  in  size,  but  great  politically ; 
it  was  a  strike  for  liberty,  a  struggle  for  a  principle, 
a  stand  against  injustice  and  oppression.  It  was  the 
Barons  and  John,  over  again;  it  was  Hampden  and 
Ship-Money ;  it  was  Concord  and  Lexington ; 
small  beginnings,  all  of  them,  but  all  of  them  great 
in  political  results,  all  of  them  epoch-making.  It  is 
another  instance  of  a  victory  won  by  a  lost  battle. 
It  adds  an  honorable  page  to  history;  the  people 
know  it  and  are  proud  of  it.  They  keep  green  the 
memory  of  the  men  who  fell  at  the  Eureka  Stockade, 
and  Peter  Lalor  has  his  monument. 

The    surface-soil    of   Ballarat   was    full    of    gold. 


Following  the  Equator  241 

This  soil  the  miners  ripped  and  tore  and  trenched 
and  harried  and  disemboweled,  and  made  it  yield  up 
its  immense  treasure.  Then  they  went  down  into 
the  earth  with  deep  shafts,  seeking  the  gravelly  beds 
i)f  ancient  rivers  and  brooks  —  and  found  them. 
They  followed  the  courses  of  these  streams,  and 
gutted  them,  sending  the  gravel  up  in  buckets  to  the 
upper  world,  and  washing  out  of  it  its  enormous  de 
posits  of  gold.  The  next  biggest  of  the  two  monster 
nuggets  mentioned  above  came  from  an  old  river- 
channel  1 80  feet  under  ground. 

Finally  the  quartz  lodes  were  attacked.  That  is 
not  poor  man's  mining.  Quartz-mining  and  milling 
require  capital,  and  staying-power,  and  patience. 
Big  companies  were  formed,  and  for  several  decades, 
now,  the  lodes  have  been  successfully  worked,  and 
have  yielded  great  wealth.  Since  the  gold  discovery 
in  1853  the  Ballarat  mines  —  taking  the  three  kinds 
of  mining  together  —  have  contributed  to  the  world's 
pocket  something  over  three  hundred  millions  of  dol 
lars,  which  is  to  say  that  this  nearly  invisible  little 
spot  on  the  earth's  surface  has  yielded  about  one- 
fourth  as  much  gold  in  forty-four  years  as  all  Cali 
fornia  has  yielded  in  forty-seven.  The  Calif ornian 
aggregate,  from  1848  to  1895,  inclusive,  as  reported 
by  the  Statistician  of  the  United  States  Mint,  is 
$1,265,217,217. 

A  citizen  told  me  a  curious  thing  about  those 
mines.  With  all  my  experience  of  mining  I  had 
never  heard  of  anything  of  the  sort  before.  The 


242  Following  the  Equator 

main  gold  reef  runs  about  north  and  south  —  of 
course  —  for  that  is  the  custom  of  a  rich  gold  reef. 
At  Ballarat  its  course  is  between  walls  of  slate. 
Now  the  citizen  told  me  that  throughout  a  stretch 
of  twelve  miles  along  the  reef,  the  reef  is  crossed 
at  intervals  by  a  straight  black  streak  of  a  carbona 
ceous  nature  —  a  streak  in  the  slate;  a  streak  no 
thicker  than  a  pencil  —  and  that  wherever  it  crosses 
the  reef  you  will  certainly  find  gold  at  the  junction. 
It  is  called  the  Indicator.  Thirty  feet  on  each  side 
of  the  Indicator  (and  down  in  the  slate,  of  course)  is 
a  still  finer  streak  —  a  streak  as  fine  as  a  pencil  mark ; 
and  indeed,  that  is  its  name  —  Pencil  Mark.  When 
ever  you  find  the  Pencil  Mark  you  know  that  thirty 
feet  from  it  is  the  Indicator;  you  measure  the 
distance,  excavate,  find  the  Indicator,  trace  it 
straight  to  the  reef,  and  sink  your  shaft;  your 
fortune  is  made,  for  certain.  If  that  is  true,  it  is 
curious.  And  it  is  curious  any  way. 

Ballarat  is  a  town  of  only  40,000  population  ;  and 
yet,  since  it  is  in  Australia,  it  has  every  essential  of 
an  advanced  and  enlightened  big  city.  This  is  pure 
matter  of  course.  I  must  stop  dwelling  upon  these 
things.  It  is  hard  to  keep  from  dwelling  upon  them, 
though ;  for  it  is  difficult  to  get  away  from  the  sur 
prise  of  it.  I  will  let  the  other  details  go,  this  time, 
but  I  must  allow  myself  to  mention  that  this  little 
town  has  a  park  of  326  acres;  a  flower  garden  of 
83  acres,  with  an  elaborate  and  expensive  fernery  in 
it  and  some  costly  and  unusually  fine  statuary;  and 


Following  the  Equator  24} 

an  artificial  lake  covering  600  acres,  equipped  with 
a  fleet  of  200  shells,  small  sail  boats,  and  little  steam 
yachts. 

At  this  point  I  strike  out  some  other  praiseful 
things  which  I  was  tempted  to  add.  I  do  not  strike 
them  out  because  they  were  not  true  or  not  well  said, 
but  because  I  find  them  better  said  by  another  man 
—  and  a  man  more  competent  to  testify,  too,  be 
cause  he  belongs  on  the  ground,  and  knows.  I  clip 
them  from  a  chatty  speech  delivered  some  years  ago 
by  Mr.  William  Little,  who  was  at  that  time  mayor 
of  Ballarat : 

' '  The  language  of  our  citizens,  in  this  as  in  other  parts  of  Australasia, 
is  mostly  healthy  Anglo-Saxon,  free  from  Americanisms,  vulgarisms, 
and  the  conflicting  dialects  of  our  Fatherland,  and  is  pure  enough  to 
suit  a  Trench  or  a  Latham.  Our  youth,  aided  by  climatic  influence, 
are  in  point  of  physique  and  comeliness  unsurpassed  in  the  Sunny 
South.  Our  young  men  are  well  ordered;  and  our  maidens,  '  not 
stepping  over  the  bounds  of  modesty,'  are  as  fair  as  Psyches,  dispensing 
smiles  as  charming  as  November  flowers." 

The  closing  clause  has  the  seeming  of  a  rather 
frosty  compliment,  but  that  is  apparent  only,  not  real. 
November  is  summer-time  there.  His  compliment 
to  the  local  purity  of  the  language  is  warranted. 
It  is  quite  free  from  impurities;  this  is  acknowl 
edged  far  and  wide.  As  in  the  German  Empire  all 
cultivated  people  claim  to  speak  Hanoverian  German, 
so  in  Australasia  all  cultivated  people  claim  to 
speak  Ballarat  English.  Even  in  England  this  cult 
has  made  considerable  progress,  and  now  that  it  is 
favored  by  the  two  great  Universities,  the  time  is  not 
p* 


244  Following  the  Equator 

far  away  when  Ballarat  English  will  come  into  gen 
eral  use  among  the  educated  classes  of  Great  Britain 
at  large.  Its  great  merit  is,  that  it  is  shorter  than 
ordinary  English  —  that  is,  it  is  more  compressed. 
At  first  you  have  some  difficulty  in  understanding 
it  when  it  is  spoken  as  rapidly  as  the  orator  whom 
I  have  quoted  speaks  it.  An  illustration  will  show 
what  I  mean.  When  he  called  and  I  handed  him  a 
chair,  he  bowed  and  said : 

"Q-" 

Presently,  when  we  were  lighting  our  cigars,  he 

held  a  match  to  mine  and  I  said : 

11  Thank  you,"  and  he  said  : 

"Km." 

Then  I  saw.  Q  is  the  end  of  the  phrase  "  I  thank 
you."  Km  is  the  end  of  the  phrase  "  You  are  wel 
come."  Mr.  Little  puts  no  emphasis  upon  either  of 
them,  but  delivers  them  so  reduced  that  they  hardly 
have  a  sound.  All  Ballarat  English  is  like  that,  and 
the  effect  is  very  soft  and  pleasant;  it  takes  all  the 
hardness  and  harshness  out  of  our  tongue  and  gives 
to  it  a  delicate  whispery  and  vanishing  cadence  which 
charms  the  ear  like  the  faint  rustling  of  the  forest 
leaves. 


CHAPTER   XXV. 

"  Classic"    A  book  which  people  praise  and  don't  read. 

— Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

ON  the  rail  again  —  bound  for  Bendigo.  From 
diary : 

October  23.  Got  up  at  6,  left  at  7.30;  soon 
reached  Castlemaine,  one  of  the  rich  gold-fields  of 
the  early  days;  waited  several  hours  for  a  train; 
left  at  3.40  and  reached  Bendigo  in  an  hour.  For 
comrade,  a  Catholic  priest  who  was  better  than  I 
was,  but  didn't  seem  to  know  it  —  a  man  full  of 
graces  of  the  heart,  the  mind,  and  the  spirit;  a 
lovable  man.  He  will  rise.  He  will  be  a  Bishop 
some  day.  Later  an  Archbishop.  Later  a  Cardinal. 
Finally  an  Archangel,  I  hope.  And  then  he  will 
recall  me  when  I  say,  "  Do  you  remember  that  trip 
we  made  from  Ballarat  to  Bendigo,  when  you  were 
nothing  but  Father  C.,  and  I  was  nothing  to  what  I 
am  now?'1  It  has  actually  taken  nine  hours  to 
come  from  Ballarat  to  Bendigo.  We  could  have 
saved  seven  by  walking.  However,  there  was  no 
hurry. 

Bendigo  was  another  of  the  rich  strikes  of  the 

(245) 


246  Following  the  Equator 

early  days.  It  does' a  great  quartz-mining  business, 
now  —  that  business  which,  more  than  any  other 
that  I  know  of,  teaches  patience,  and  requires  grit 
and  a  steady  nerve.  The  town  is  full  of  towering 
chimney-stacks  and  hoisting-works,  and  looks  like 
a  petroleum-city.  Speaking  of  patience ;  for  ex 
ample,  one  of  the  local  companies  went  steadily  on 
with  its  deep  borings  and  searchings  without  show 
of  gold  or  a  penny  of  reward  for  eleven  years  — 
then  struck  it,  and  became  suddenly  rich.  The 
eleven  years'  work  had  cost  $55,000,  and  the  first 
gold  found  was  a  grain  the  size  of  a  pin's  head.  It 
is  kept  under  locks  and  bars,  as  a  precious  thing, 
and  is  reverently  shown  to  the  visitor,  "hats  off." 
When  I  saw  it  I  had  not  heard  its  history. 

"  It  is  gold.     Examine  it  —  take  the  glass.     Now 
how  much  should  you  say  it  is  worth?" 

I  said : 

' '  I  should  say  about  two  cents ;   or  in  your  English 
dialect,  four  farthings." 

"Well,  it  cost  £11,000." 

"Oh,  come!" 

*  Yes,  it  did.  Ballarat  and  Bendigo  have  pro 
duced  the  three  monumental  nuggets  of  the  world, 
and  this  one  is  the  monumentalest  one  of  the  three. 
The  other  two  represent  ,£9,000  apiece;  this  one  a 
couple  of  thousand  more.  It  is  small,  and  not 
much  to  look  at,  but  it  is  entitled  to  its  name  — 
Adam.  It  is  the  Adam-nugget  of  this  mine,  and  its 
children  run  up  into  the  millions." 


Following  the  Equator  247 

Speaking  of  patience  again,  another  of  the  mines 
was  worked,  under  heavy  expenses,  during  17  years 
before  pay  was  struck,  and  still  another  one  com 
pelled  a  wait  of  2 1  years  before  pay  was  struck ; 
then,  in  both  instances,  the  outlay  was  all  back  in  a 
year  or  two,  with  compound  interest. 

Bendigo  has  turned  out  even  more  gold  than 
Ballarat.  The  two  together  have  produced  $650,- 
000,000  worth  —  which  is  half  as  much  as  California 
produced. 

It  was  through  Mr.  Blank  —  not  to  go  into  par 
ticulars  about  his  name  —  it  was  mainly  through  Mr. 
Blank  that  my  stay  in  Bendigo  was  made  memorably 
pleasant  and  interesting.  He  explained  this  to  me 
himself.  He  told  me  that  it  was  through  his  in 
fluence  that  the  city  government  invited  me  to  the 
town-hall  to  hear  complimentary  speeches  and  re 
spond  to  them;  that  it  was  through  his  influence 
that  I  had  been  taken  on  a  long  pleasure-drive 
through  the  city  and  shown  its  notable  features; 
that  it  was  through  his  influence  that  I  was  invited 
to  visit  the  great  mines ;  that  it  was  through  his  in 
fluence  that  I  was  taken  to  the  hospital  and  allowed 
to  see  the  convalescent  Chinaman  who  had  been 
attacked  at  midnight  in  his  lonely  hut  eight  weeks 
before  by  robbers,  and  stabbed  forty-six  times  and 
scalped  besides;  that  it  was  through  his  influence 
that  when  I  arrived  this  awful  spectacle  of  piecings 
and  patchings  and  bandagings  was  sitting  up  in  his 
cot  letting  on  to  read  one  of  my  books ;  that  it  was 


248  Following  the  Equator 

through  his  influence  that  efforts  had  been  made  to 
get  the  Catholic  Archbishop  of  Bendigo  to  invite  me 
to  dinner;  that  it  was  through  his  influence  that 
efforts  had  been  made  to  get  the  Anglican  Bishop 
of  Bendigo  to  ask  me  to  supper;  that  it  was  through 
his  influence  that  the  dean  of  the  editorial  fraternity 
had  driven  me  through  the  woodsy  outlying  country 
and  shown  me,  from  the  summit  of  Lone  Tree  Hill, 
the  mightiest  and  loveliest  expanse  of  forest-clad 
mountain  and  valley  that  I  had  seen  in  all  Australia. 
And  when  he  asked  me  what  had  most  impressed 
me  in  Bendigo  and  I  answered  and  said  it  was  the 
taste  and  the  public  spirit  which  had  adorned  the 
streets  with  105  miles  of  shade  trees,  he  said  that  it 
was  through  his  influence  that  it  had  been  done. 

But  I  am  not  representing  him  quite  correctly. 
He  did  not  say  it  was  through  his  influence  that  all 
these  things  had  happened  —  for  that  would  have 
been  coarse;  he  merely  conveyed  that  idea;  con 
veyed  it  so  subtly  that  I  only  caught  it  fleetingly,  as 
one  catches  vagrant  faint  breaths  of  perfume  when 
one  traverses  the  meadows  in  summer;  conveyed  it 
without  offense  and  without  any  suggestion  of  egoism 
or  ostentation  —  but  conveyed  it,  nevertheless. 

He  was  an  Irishman ;  an  educated  gentleman ; 
grave,  and  kindly,  and  courteous;  a  bachelor,  and 
about  forty-five  or  possibly  fifty  years  old,  appar 
ently.  He  called  upon  me  at  the  hotel,  and  it  was 
there  that  we  had  this  talk.  He  made  me  like  him, 
and  did  it  without  trouble.  This  was  partly  through 


Following  the  Equator  249 

his  winning  and  gentle  ways,  but  mainly  through 
the  amazing  familiarity  with  my  books  which  his 
conversation  showed.  He  was  down  to  date  with 
them,  too ;  and  if  he  had  made  them  the  study  of 
his  life  he  could  hardly  have  been  better  posted  as 
to  their  contents  than  he  was.  He  made  me  better 
satisfied  with  myself  than  I  had  ever  been  before. 
It  was  plain  that  he  had  a  deep  fondness  for  humor, 
yet  he  never  laughed ;  he  never  even  chuckled ;  in 
fact,  humor  could  not  win  to  outward  expression  on 
his  face  at  all.  No,  he  was  always  grave  —  tenderly, 
pensively  grave ;  but  he  made  me  laugh,  all  along; 
and  this  was  very  trying — and  very  pleasant  at  the 
same  time  —  for  it  was  at  quotations  from  my  own 
books. 

When  he  was  going,  he  turned  and  said : 
"  You  don't  remember  me?" 
"I?     Why,  no.     Have  we  met  before?" 
"  No,  it  was  a  matter  of  correspondence." 
11  Correspondence?" 

"  Yes,  many  years  ago.  Twelve  or  fifteen.  Oh, 
longer  than  that.  But  of  course  you — "  A 
musing  pause.  Then  he  said  : 

"  Do  you  remember  Corrigan  Castle?" 
"N  —  no,  I   believe  I   don't.     I   don't  seem  tc 
recall  the  name." 

He  waited  a  moment,  pondering,  with  the  door 
knob  in  his  hand,  then  started  out;  but  turned  back 
and  said  that  I  had  once  been  interested  in  Corrigan 
Castle,  and  asked  me  if  I  would  go  with  him  to  his 


250  Following  the  Equator 

quarters  in  the  evening  and  take  a  hot  Scotch  and 
talk  it  over.  I  was  a  teetotaler  and  liked  relaxation, 
so  I  said  I  would. 

We  drove  from  the  lecture-hall  together  about 
half-past  ten.  He  had  a  most  comfortably  and 
tastefully  furnished  parlor,  with  good  pictures  on 
the  walls,  Indian  and  Japanese  ornaments  on  the 
mantel,  and  here  and  there,  and  books  everywhere  — 
largely  mine;  which  made  me  proud.  The  light  was 
brilliant,  the  easy  chairs  were  deep-cushioned,  the 
arrangements  for  brewing  and  smoking  were  all 
there.  We  brewed  and  lit  up;  then  he  passed  a 
sheet  of  note-paper  to  me  and  said : 

"  Do  you  remember  that?" 

"  Oh,  yes,  indeed!" 

The  paper  was  of  a  sumptuous  quality.  At  the  top 
was  a  twisted  and  interlaced  monogram  printed  from 
steel  dies  in  gold  and  blue  and  red,  in  the  ornate 
English  fashion  of  long  years  ago ;  and  under  it,  in 
neat  gothic  capitals,  was  this —  printed  in  blue: 

THE  MARK  TWAIN  CLUB 
CORRIGAN  CASTLE 

187.. 

"My!"  said  I,  "how  did  you  come  by  this?" 

"I  was  President  of  it." 

"  No  !  — you  don't  mean  it." 

"It  is  true.  I  was  its  first  President.  I  was  re- 
elected  annually  as  long  as  its  meetings  were  held  in 
my  castle  —  Corrigan  —  which  was  five  years." 


Following  the  Equator  251 

Then  he  showed  me  an  album  with  twenty-three 
photographs  of  me  in  it.  Five  of  them  were  of  old 
dates,  the  others  of  various  later  crops  ;  the  list  closed 
with  a  picture  taken  by  Falk  in  Sydney  a  month 
before. 

'You    sent    us     the    first    five;    the    rest   were 
bought." 

This  was  paradise!  We  ran  late,  and  talked, 
talked,  talked  —  subject,  the  Mark  Twain  Club  of 
Corrigan  Castle,  Ireland. 

My  first  knowledge  of  that  Club  dates  away  back , 
all  of  twenty  years,  I  should  say.  It  came  to  me  in 
the  form  of  a  courteous  letter,  written  on  the  note- 
paper  which  I  have  described,  and  signed  "By 
order  of  the  President;  C.  PEMBROKE,  Secretary." 
It  conveyed  the  fact  that  the  Club  had  been  created 
in  my  honor,  and  added  the  hope  that  this  token  of 
appreciation  of  my  work  would  meet  with  my 
approval. 

I  answered,  with  thanks;  and  did  what  I  could  to 
keep  my  gratification  from  over-exposure. 

It  was  then  that  the  long  correspondence  began. 
A  letter  came  back,  by  order  of  the  President, 
furnishing  me  the  names  of  the  members  —  thirty- 
two  in  number.  With  it  came  a  copy  of  the  Consti 
tution  and  By-Laws,  in  pamphlet  form,  and  artistic 
ally  printed.  The  initiation  fee  and  dues  were  in 
their  proper  place;  also,  schedule  of  meetings  — 
monthly  —  for  essays  upon  works  of  mine,  followed 
by  discussions ;  quarterly  for  business  and  a  supper, 


252  Following  the  Equator 

without  essays,  but  with  after-supper  speeches ;  also 
there  was  a  list  of  the  officers:  President,  Vice- 
President,  Secretary,  Treasurer,  etc.  The  letter  was 
brief,  but  it  was  pleasant  reading,  for  it  told  me 
about  the  strong  interest  which  the  membership 
took  in  their  new  venture,  etc.,  etc.  It  also  asked 
me  for  a  photograph  —  a  special  one.  I  went  down 
and  sat  for  it  and  sent  it  —  with  a  letter,  of  course. 

Presently  came  the  badge  of  the  Club,  and  very 
dainty  and  pretty  it  was;  and  very  artistic.  It  was 
a  frog  peeping  out  from  a  graceful  tangle  of  grass- 
sprays  and  rushes,  and  was  done  in  enamels  on  a 
gold  basis,  and  had  a  gold  pin  back  of  it.  After  I 
had  petted  it,  and  played  with  it,  and  caressed  it, 
and  enjoyed  it  a  couple  of  hours,  the  light  happened 
to  fall  upon  it  at  a  new  angle,  and  revealed  to  me  a 
cunning  new  detail ;  with  the  light  just  right,  certain 
delicate  shadings  of  the  grass-blades  and  rush-stems 
wove  themselves  into  a  monogram  —  mine!  You 
can  see  that  that  jewel  was  a  work  of  art.  And 
when  you  come  to  consider  the  intrinsic  value  of  it, 
you  must  concede  that  it  is  not  every  literary  club 
that  could  afford  a  badge  like  that.  It  was  easily 
worth  $75,  in  the  opinion  of  Messrs.  Marcus  and 
Ward  of  New  York.  They  said  they  could  not 
duplicate  it  for  that  and  make  a  profit. 

By  this  time  the  Club  was  well  under  way ;  and 
from  that  time  forth  its  secretary  kept  my  off-hours 
well  supplied  with  business.  He  reported  the  Club's 
discussions  of  my  books  with  laborious  fullness,  and 


Following  the  Equator  253 

did  his  work  with  great  spirit  and  ability.  As  a  rule, 
he  synopsized;  but  when  a  speech  was  especially 
brilliant,  he  short-handed  it  and  gave  me  the  best 
passages  from  it,  written  out.  There  were  five 
speakers  whom  he  particularly  favored  in  that  way : 
Palmer,  Forbes,  Naylor,  Norris,  and  Calder.  Palmer 
and  Forbes  could  never  get  through  a  speech  with 
out  attacking  each  other,  and  each  in  his  own  way 
was  formidably  effective  —  Palmer  in  virile  and  elo 
quent  abuse,  Forbes  in  courtly  and  elegant  but 
scalding  satire.  I  could  always  tell  which  of  them 
was  talking  without  looking  for  his  name.  Naylor 
had  a  polished  style  and  a  happy  knack  at  felicitous 
metaphor;  Norris's  style  was  wholly  without  orna 
ment,  but  enviably  compact,  lucid,  and  strong.  But 
after  all,  Calder  was  the  gem.  He  never  spoke 
when  sober,  he  spoke  continuously  when  he  wasn't. 
And  certainly  they  were  the  drunkest  speeches  that 
a  man  ever  uttered.  They  were  full  of  good  things, 
but  so  incredibly  mixed  up  and  wandering  that  it 
made  one's  head  swim  to  fellow  him.  They  were 
not  intended  to  be  funny,  but  they  were, —  funny 
for  the  very  gravity  which  the  speaker  put  into  his 
flowing  miracles  of  incongruity.  In  the  course  of 
five  years  I  came  to  know  the  styles  of  the  five 
orators  as  well  as  I  knew  the  style  of  any  speaker  in 
my  own  club  at  home. 

These  reports  came  every  month.  They  were 
written  on  foolscap,  600  words  to  the  page,  and 
usually  about  twenty-five  pages  in  a  report  —  a  good 


254  Following  the  Equator 

15,000  words,  I  should  say, —  a  solid  week's  work. 
The  reports  were  absorbingly  entertaining,  long  as 
they  were ;  but,  unfortunately  for  me,  they  did  not 
come  alone.  They  were  always  accompanied  by  a 
lot  of  questions  about  passages  and  purposes  in  my 
books,  which  the  Club  wanted  answered;  and  addi 
tionally  accompanied  every  quarter  by  the  Treas 
urer's  report,  and  the  Auditor's  report,  and  the 
Committee's  report,  and  the  President's  review,  and 
my  opinion  of  these  was  always  desired ;  also  sug 
gestions  for  the  good  of  the  Club,  if  any  occurred 
to  me. 

By  and  by  I  came  to  dread  those  things ;  and  this 
dread  grew  and  grew  and  grew ;  grew  until  I  got  to 
anticipating  them  with  a  cold  horror.  For  I  was  an 
indolent  man,  and  not  fond  of  letter- writing,  and 
whenever  these  things  came  I  had  to  put  everything 
by  and  sit  down  —  for  my  own  peace  of  mind  —  and 
dig  and  dig  until  I  got  something  out  of  my  head 
which  would  answer  for  a  reply.  I  got  along  fairly 
well  the  first  year ;  but  for  the  succeeding  four  years 
the  Mark  Twain  Club  of  Corrigan  Castle  was  my 
curse,  my  nightmare,  the  grief  and  misery  of  my 
life.  And  I  got  so,  so  sick  of  sitting  for  photo 
graphs.  I  sat  every  year  for  five  years,  trying  to 
satisfy  that  insatiable  organization.  Then  at  last  I 
rose  in  revolt.  I  could  endure  my  oppressions  no 
longer.  I  pulled  my  fortitude  together  and  tore  off 
my  chains,  and  was  a  free  man  again,  and  happy. 
From  that  day  I  burned  the  secretary's  fat  envelopes 


Following  the  Equator  255 

the  moment  they  arrived,  and  by  and  by  they  ceased 
to  come. 

Well,  in  the  sociable  frankness  of  that  night  in 
Bcndigo  I  brought  this  all  out  in  full  confession. 
Then  Mr.  Blank  came  out  in  the  same  frank  way, 
and  with  a  preliminary  word  of  gentle  apology  said 
that  he  was  the  Mark  Twain  Club,  and  the  only 
member  it  had  ever  had ! 

Why,  it  was  matter  for  anger,  but  I  didn't  feel 
any.  He  said  he  never  had  to  work  for  a  living, 
and  that  by  the  time  he  was  thirty  life  had  become  a 
bore  and  a  weariness  to  him.  He  had  no  interests 
left;  they  had  paled  and  perished,  one  by  one,  and 
left  him  desolate.  He  had  begun  to  think  of  suicide. 
Then  all  of  a  sudden  he  thought  of  that  happy  idea 
of  starting  an  imaginary  club,  and  went  straightway 
to  work  at  it,  with  enthusiasm  and  love.  He  was 
charmed  with  it;  it  gave  him  something  to  do.  It 
elaborated  itself  on  his  hands;  it  became  twenty 
times  more  complex  and  formidable  than  was  his 
first  rude  draft  of  it.  Every  new  addition  to  his 
original  plan  which  cropped  up  in  his  mind  gave 
him  a  fresh  interest  and  a  new  pleasure.  He  de 
signed  the  Club  badge  himself,  and  worked  over  it, 
altering  and  improving  it,  a  number  of  days  and 
nights;  then  sent  to  London  and  had  it  made.  It 
was  the  only  one  that  was  made.  It  was  made  for 
me ;  the  "  rest  of  the  Club  "  went  without. 

He  invented  the  thirty-two  members  and  their 
names.  He  invented  the  five  favorite  speakers  and 


256  Following  the  Equator 

their  five  separate  styles.  He  invented  their 
speeches,  and  reported  them  himself.  He  would 
have  kept  that  Club  going  until  now,  if  I  hadn't 
deserted,  he  said.  He  said  he  worked  like  a  slave 
over  those  reports ;  each  of  them  cost  him  from  a 
week  to  a  fortnight's  work,  and  the  work  gave  him 
pleasure  and  kept  him  alive  and  willing  to  be  alive. 
It  was  a  bitter  blow  to  him  when  the  Club  died. 

Finally,  there  wasn't  any  Corrigan  Castle.  He 
had  invented  that,  too. 

It  was  wonderful  —  the  whole  thing;  and  alto 
gether  the  most  ingenious  and  laborious  and  cheerful 
and  painstaking  practical  joke  I  have  ever  heard  of. 
And  I  liked  it;  liked  to  hear  him  tell  about  it;  yet 
I  have  been  a  hater  of  practical  jokes  from  as  long 
back  as  I  can  remember.  Finally  he  said : 

"  Do  you  remember  a  note  from  Melbourne  four 
teen  or  fifteen  years  ago,  telling  about  your  lecture 
tour  in  Australia,  and  your  death  and  burial  in  Mel 
bourne  ?  —  a  note  from  Henry  Bascom,  of  Bascom 
Hall,  Upper  Holywell,  Hants." 

"Yes." 

"I  wrote  it." 

"  M-y  —  word  !" 

"  Yes,  I  did  it.  I  don't  know  why.  I  just  took 
the  notion,  and  carried  it  out  without  stopping  to 
think.  It  was  wrong.  It  could  have  done  harm. 
I  was  always  sorry  about  it  afterward.  You  must 
forgive  me.  I  was  Mr.  Bascom's  guest  on  his 
yacht,  on  his  voyage  around  the  world.  He  often 


Following  the  Equator  257 

spoke  of  you,  and  of  the  pleasant  times  you  had 
had  together  in  his  home ;  and  the  notion  took  me, 
there  in  Melbourne,  and  I  imitated  his  hand,  and 
wrote  the  letter." 

So  the   mystery  was  cleared   up,  after  so  many, 
many  years. 


CHAPTER   XXVI. 

There  are  people  who  can  do  all  fine  and  heroic  things  but  one:  keep  from 
telling  their  happinesses  to  the  unhappy. 

—Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

7YFTER  visits  to  Maryborough  and  some  other 
*»  Australian  towns,  we  presently  took  passage 
for  New  Zealand.  If  it  would  not  look  too  much 
like  showing  off,  I  would  tell  the  reader  where  New 
Zealand  is;  for  he  is  as  I  was:  he  thinks  he  knows. 
And  he  thinks  he  knows  where  Herzegovina  is ; 
and  how  to  pronounce  pariah  ;  and  how  to  use  the 
word  unique  without  exposing  himself  to  the  derision 
of  the  dictionary.  But  in  truth,  he  knows  none  of 
these  things.  There  are  but  four  or  five  people  in 
the  world  who  possess  this  knowledge,  and  these 
make  their  living  out  of  it.  They  travel  from  place 
to  place,  visiting  literary  assemblages,  geographical 
societies,  and  seats  of  learning,  and  springing  sud 
den  bets  that  these  people  do  not  know  these  things. 
Since  all  people  think  they  know  them,  they  are  an 
easy  prey  to  these  adventurers.  Or  rather  they 
were  an  easy  prey  until  the  law  interfered  three 
months  ago,  and  a  New  York  court  decided  that  this 
kind  of  gambling  is  illegal,  "because  it  traverses 

(258) 


Following  the  Equator  259 

Article  IV,  Section  9,  of  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  which  forbids  betting  on  a  sure 
thing."  This  decision  was  rendered  by  the  full 
Bench  of  the  New  York  Supreme  Court,  after  a  test 
sprung  upon  the  court  by  counsel  for  the  prosecu 
tion1,  which  showed  that  none  of  the  nine  Judges 
was  able  to  answer  any  of  the  four  questions. 

All  people  think  that  New  Zealand  is  close  to 
Australia  or  Asia,  or  somewhere,  and  that  you  cross 
to  it  on  a  bridge.  But  that  is  not  so.  It  is  not 
close  to  anything,  but  lies  by  itself,  out  in  the 
water.  It  is  nearest  to  Australia,  but  still  not  near. 
The  gap  between  is  very  wide.  It  will  be  a  surprise 
to  the  reader,  as  it  was  to  me,  to  learn  that  the  dis 
tance  from  Australia  to  New  Zealand  is  really  twelve 
or  thirteen  hundred  miles,  and  that  there  is  no 
bridge.  I  learned  this  from  Professor  X.,  of  Yale 
University,  whom  I  met  in  the  steamer  on  the  great 
lakes  when  I  was  crossing  the  continent  to  sail  across 
the  Pacific.  I  asked  him  about  New  Zealand,  in 
order  to  make  conversation.  I  supposed  he  would 
generalize  a  little  without  compromising  himself, 
and  then  turn  the  subject  to  something  he  was  ac 
quainted  with,  and  my  object  would  then  be  at 
tained:  the  ice  would  be  broken,  and  we  could  go 
smoothly  on,  and  get  acquainted,  and  have  a  pleas 
ant  time.  But,  to  my  surprise,  he  was  not  only  not 
embarrassed  by  my  question,  but  seemed  to  welcome 
it,  and  to  take  a  distinct  interest  in  it.  He  began 
to  talk — fluently,  confidently,  comfortably:  and  as 


260  Following  the  Equator 

he  talked,  my  admiration  grew  and  grew;  for  as  the 
subject  developed  under  his  hands,  I  saw  that  he 
not  only  knew  where  New  Zealand  was,  but  that  he 
was  minutely  familiar  with  every  detail  of  its  history, 
politics,  religions,  and  commerce,  its  fauna,  flora, 
geology,  products,  and  climatic  peculiarities.  When 
he  was  done,  I  was  lost  in  wonder  and  admiration, 
and  said  to  myself,  he  knows  everything;  in  the 
domain  of  human  knowledge  he  is  king. 

I  wanted  to  see  him  do  more  miracles;  and  so, 
just  for  the  pleasure  of  hearing  him  answer,  I  asked 
him  about  Herzegovina,  and  pariah,  and  unique. 
But  he  began  to  generalize  then,  and  show  distress. 
I  saw  that  with  New  Zealand  gone,  he  was  a  Samson 
shorn  of  his  locks;  he  was  as  other  men.  This  was 
a  curious  and  interesting  mystery,  and  I  was  frank 
with  him,  and  asked  him  to  explain  it. 

He  tried  to  avoid  it  at  first ;  but  then  laughed  and 
said  that,  after  all,  the  matter  was  not  worth  conceal 
ment,  so  he  would  let  me  into  the  secret.  In  sub 
stance,  this  is  his  story : 

"Last  autumn  I  was  at  work  one  morning  at  home,  when  a  card 
came  up  —  the  card  of  a  stranger.  Under  the  name  was  printed  a  line 
which  showed  that  this  visitor  was  Professor  of  Theological  Engineering 
in  Wellington  University,  New  Zealand.  I  was  troubled  —  troubled,  I 
mean,  by  the  shortness  of  the  notice.  College  etiquette  required  that 
he  be  at  once  invited  to  dinner  by  some  member  of  the  Faculty  —  in 
vited  to  dine  on  that  day  —  not  put  off  till  a  subsequent  day.  I  did  not 
quite  know  what  to  do.  College  etiquette  requires,  in  the  case  of  a 
foreign  guest,  that  the  dinner-talk  shall  begin  with  complimentary  refer 
ences  to  his  country,  its  great  men,  its  services  to  civilization,  its  seats 
of  learning,  and  things  like  that;  and  of  course  the  host  is  responsible, 


Following  the  Equator  261 

and  must  either  begin  this  talk  himself  or  see  that  it  is  done  by  some 
one  else.  I  was  in  great  difficulty;  and  the  more  I  searched  my 
memory,  the  more  my  trouble  grew.  I  found  that  I  knew  nothing  about 
New  Zealand.  I  thought  I  knew  where  it  was,  and  that  was  all.  I  had 
an  impression  that  it  was  close  to  Australia,  or  Asia,  or  somewhere,  and 
that  one  went  over  to  it  on  a  bridge.  This  might  turn  out  to  be  incor 
rect;  and  even  if  correct,  it  would  not  furnish  matter  enough  for  the 
purpose  at  the  dinner,  and  I  should  expose  my  College  to  shame  before 
my  guest;  he  would  see  that  I,  a  member  of  the  Faculty  of  the  first 
University  in  America,  was  wholly  ignorant  of  his  country,  and  he 
would  go  away  and  tell  this,  and  laugh  at  it.  The  thought  of  it  made 
my  face  burn. 

"  I  sent  for  my  wife  and  told  her  how  I  was  situated,  and  asked  for  her 
help,  and  she  thought  of  a  thing  which  I  might  have  thought  of  myself, 
if  I  had  not  been  excited  and  worried.  She  said  she  would  go  and  tell 
the  visitor  that  I  was  out,  but  would  be  in  in  a  few  minutes;  and  she 
would  talk  and  keep  him  busy  while  I  got  out  the  back  way  and  hurried 
over  and  make  Professor  Lawson  give  the  dinner.  For  Lawson  knew 
everything  and  could  meet  the  guest  in  a  creditable  way,  and  save  the 
reputation  of  the  University.  I  ran  to  Lawson,  but  was  disappointed. 
He  did  not  know  anything  about  New  Zealand.  He  said  that,  as  far  as 
his  recollection  went  it  was  close  to  Australia,  or  Asia,  or  somewhere, 
and  you  go  over  to  it  on  a  bridge;  but  that  was  all  he  knew.  It  was  too 
bad.  Lawson  was  a  perfect  encyclopedia  of  abstruse  learning;  but  now 
in  this  hour  of  our  need,  it  turned  out  that  he  did  not  know  any  useful 
thing. 

"  We  consulted.  He  saw  that  the  reputation  of  the  University  was 
in  very  real  peril,  and  he  walked  the  floor  in  anxiety,  talking,  and  trying 
to  think  out  some  way  to  meet  the  difficulty.  Presently,  he  decided  that 
we  must  try  the  rest  of  the  Faculty  —  some  of  them  might  know  about 
New  Zealand.  So  we  went  to  the  telephone  and  called  up  the  professor 
of  astronomy  and  asked  him,  and  he  said  that  all  he  knew  was,  that  it  was 
close  to  Australia,  or  Asia,  or  somewhere,  and  you  went  over  to  it  on  — 

"We  shut  him  off  and  called  up  the  professor  of  biology,  and  he 
said  that  all  he  knew  was  that  it  was  close  to  Aus  — 

"We  shut  him  off,  and  sat  down,  worried  and  disheartened,  to  see 
if  we  could  think  up  some  other  scheme.  We  shortly  hit  upon  one 
which  promised  well,  and  this  one  we  adopted,  and  set  its  machinery 
going  at  once.  It  was  this.  Lawson  must  give  the  dinner.  The 


262  Following  the  Equator 

Faculty  must  be  notified  by  telephone  to  prepare.  We  must  all  get  to 
work  diligently,  and  at  the  end  of  eight  hours  and  a  half  we  must  come 
to  dinner  acquainted  with  New  Zealand;  at  least  well  enough  informed 
to  appear  without  discredit  before  this  native.  To  seem  properly  in 
telligent  we  should  have  to  know  about  New  Zealand's  population,  and 
politics,  and  form  of  government,  and  commerce,  and  taxes,  and  pro 
ducts,  and  ancient  history,  and  modern  history,  and  varieties  of  religion, 
and  nature  of  the  laws,  and  their  codification,  and  amount  of  revenue, 
and  whence  drawn,  and  methods  of  collection,  and  percentage  of  loss, 
and  character  of  climate,  and  —  well,  a  lot  of  things  like  that;  we  must 
suck  the  maps  and  cyclopedias  dry.  And  while  we  posted  up  in  this  way, 
the  Faculty's  wives  must  flock  over,  one  after  the  other,  in  a  studiedly 
casual  way,  and  help  my  wife  keep  the  New  Zealander  quiet,  and  not 
let  him  get  out  and  come  interfering  with  our  studies.  The  scheme 
worked  admirably;  but  it  stopped  business,  stopped  it  entirely. 

"It  is  in  the  official  log-book  of  Yale,  to  be  read  and  wondered  at 
by  future  generations  —  the  account  of  the  Great  Blank  Day  —  the 
memorable  Blank  Day  —  the  day  wherein  the  wheels  of  culture  were 
stopped,  a  Sunday  silence  prevailed  all  about,  and  the  whole  University 
stood  still  while  the  Faculty  read-up  and  qualified  itself  to  sit  at  meat, 
without  shame,  in  the  presence  of  the  Professor  of  Theological  En 
gineering  from  New  Zealand. 

"  When  we  assembled  at  the  dinner  we  were  miserably  tired  and 
worn  —  but  we  were  posted.  Yes,  it  is  fair  to  claim  that.  In  fact,  eru 
dition  is  a  pale  name  for  it.  New  Zealand  was  the  only  subject  ;  and 
it  was  just  beautiful  to  hear  us  ripple  it  out.  And  with  such  an  air  of 
unembarrassed  ease,  and  unostentatious  familiarity  with  detail,  and 
trained  and  seasoned  mastery  of  the  subject  —  and  oh,  the  grace  and 
fluency  of  it ! 

"Well,  finally  somebody  happened  to  notice  that  the  guest  was 
looking  dazed,  and  wasn't  saying  anything.  So  they  stirred  him  up,  of 
course.  Then  that  man  came  out  with  a  good,  honest,  eloquent  com 
pliment  that  made  the  Faculty  blush.  He  said  he  was  not  worthy  to 
sit  in  the  company  of  men  like  these  ;  that  he  had  been  silent  from  ad 
miration  ;  that  he  had  been  silent  from  another  cause  also  —  silent  from 
shame — silent  from  ignorance!  'For,'  said  he,  '  I,  who  have  lived 
eighteen  years  in  New  Zealand  and  have  served  five  in  a  professorship, 
and  ought  to  know  much  about  that  country,  perceive,  now,  that  I 
know  almost  nothing  about  it.  I  say  it  with  shame,  that  I  have  learned 


Following  the  Equator  263 

fifty  times,  yes,  a  hundred  times  more  about  New  Zealand  in  these  two 
hours  at  this  table  than  I  ever  knew  before  in  all  the  eighteen  years  put 
together.  I  was  silent  because  I  could  not  help  myself.  What  I  knew 
about  taxes,  and  policies,  and  laws,  and  revenue,  and  products,  and 
history,  and  all  that  multitude  of  things,  was  but  general,  and  ordinary, 
and  vague  —  unscientific,  in  a  word  —  and  it  would  have  been  insanity 
to  expose  it  here  to  the  searching  glare  of  your  amazingly  accurate  and 
all-comprehensive  knowledge  of  those  matters,  gentlemen.  I  beg  you 
to  let  me  sit  silent  —  as  becomes  me.  But  do  not  change  the  subject  ; 
I  can  at  least  follow  you,  in  this  one;  whereas,  if  you  change  to  one 
which  shall  call  out  the  full  strength  of  your  mighty  erudition,  I  shall 
be  as  one  lost.  If  you  know  all  this  about  a  remote  little  inconsequent 
patch  like  New  Zealand,  ah,  what  wouldn't  you  know  about  any  other 
subject!" 


CHAPTER   XXVII. 

Man  is  the  Only  Animal  that  Blushes.     Or  needs  to. 

— Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

The  universal  brotherhood  of  man  is  our  most  precious  possession,  what 
there  is  of  it.  —  Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

FROM  DIARY: 

NOVEMBER  \— noon.  A  fine  day,  a  brilliant 
sun.  Warm  in  the  sun,  cold  in  the  shade  — 
an  icy  breeze  blowing  out  of  the  south.  A  solemn 
long  swell  rolling  up  northward.  It  comes  from  the 
South  Pole,  with  nothing  in  the  way  to  obstruct  its 
march  and  tone  its  energy  down.  I  have  read  some 
where  that  an  acute  observer  among  the  early  ex 
plorers —  Cook?  or  Tasman?  —  accepted  this  majes 
tic  swell  as  trustworthy  circumstantial  evidence  that 
no  important  land  lay  to  the  southward,  and  so  did 
not  waste  time  on  a  useless  quest  in  that  direction, 
but  changed  his  course  and  went  searching  else 
where. 

Afternoon.  Passing  between  Tasmania  (formerly 
Van  Diemen's  Land)  and  neighboring  islands  — 
islands  whence  the  poor  exiled  Tasmanian  savages 
used  to  gaze  at  their  lost  homeland  and  cry;  and 
die  of  broken  hearts.  How  glad  I  am  that  all  these 
native  races  are  dead  and  gone,  or  nearly  so.  The 

(264) 


Following  the  Equator  265 

work  was  mercifully  swift  and  horrible  in  some 
portions  of  Australia.  As  far  as  Tasmania  is  con 
cerned,  the  extermination  was  complete:  not  a 
native  is  left.  It  was  a  strife  of  years,  and  decades 
of  years.  The  Whites  and  the  Blacks  hunted  each 
other,  ambushed  each  other,  butchered  each  other. 
The  Blacks  were  not  numerous.  But  they  were 
wary,  alert,  cunning,  and  they  knew  their  country 
well.  They  lasted  a  long  time,  few  as  they  were, 
and  inflicted  much  slaughter  upon  the  Whites. 

The  Government  wanted  to  save  the  Blacks  from 
ultimate  extermination,  if  possible.  One  of  its 
schemes  was  to  capture  them  and  coop  them  up, 
on  a  neighboring  island,  under  guard.  Bodies  of 
Whites  volunteered  for  the  hunt,  for  the  pay  was 
good  —  ,£5  for  each  Black  captured  and  delivered  ; 
but  the  success  achieved  was  not  very  satisfactory. 
The  Black  was  naked,  and  his  body  was  greased.  It 
was  hard  to  get  a  grip  on  him  that  would  hold.  The 
Whites  moved  about  in  armed  bodies,  and  surprised 
little  families  of  natives,  and  did  make  captures ;  but 
it  was  suspected  that  in  these  surprises  half  a  dozen 
natives  were  killed  to  one  caught  —  and  that  was  not 
what  the  government  desired. 

Another  scheme  was  to  drive  the  natives  into  a 
corner  of  the  island  and  fence  them  in  by  a  cordon 
of  men  placed  in  line  across  the  country ;  but  the 
natives  managed  to  slip  through,  constantly,  and 
continue  their  murders  and  arsons. 

The  Governor  warned  these  unlettered   savages  by 


266  Following  the  Equator 

printed  proclamation  that  they  must  stay  in  the 
desolate  region  officially  appointed  for  them !  The 
proclamation  was  a  dead  letter;  the  savages  could 
not  read  it.  Afterward  a  /zVtar^-proclamation  was 
issued.  It  was  painted  upon  boards,  and  these 
were  nailed  to  trees  in  the  forest.  Herewith  is  a 
photographic  reproduction  of  this  fashion-plate. 
Substantially  it  means : 

1.  The  Governor  wishes  the  Whites  and  the  Blacks  to  love  each 
other  ; 

2.  He  loves  his  black  subjects  ; 

3.  Blacks  who  kill  Whites  will  be  hanged  ; 

4.  Whites  who  kill  Blacks  will  be  hanged. 

Upon  its  several  schemes  the  Government  spent 
,£30,000  and  employed  the  labors  and  ingenuities 
of  several  thousand  Whites  for  a  long  time  —  with 
failure  as  a  result.  Then,  at  last,  a  quarter  of  a 
century  after  the  beginning  of  the  troubles  between 
the  two  races,  the  right  man  was  found.  No,  he 
found  himself.  This  was  George  Augustus  Robin 
son,  called  in  history  "The  Conciliator."  He  was 
not  educated,  and  not  conspicuous  in  any  way.  He 
was  a  working  bricklayer,  in  Hobart  Town.  But  he 
must  have  been  an  amazing  personality;  a  man 
worth  traveling  far  to  see.  It  may  be  his  counter 
part  appears  in  history,  but  I  do  not  know  where  to 
look  for  it. 

He  set  himself  this  incredible  task :  to  go  out  into 
the  wilderness,  the  jungle,  and  the  mountain-retreats 
where  the  hunted  and  implacable  savages  were  hid- 


"Why— Massa  Gubernor "— said  Black  Jack— "You  Proflamation 
all  gammon,  how  blackfellow  read  fr"»  p— eh !  He  no  read  >»j«i 
book."  "  Read  that  then,"  said  the  Governor,  ppintingto  a  picture..  ^ 


Following  the  Equator  267 

den,  and  appear  among  them  unarmed,  speak  the 
language  of  love  and  of  kindness  to  them,  and  per 
suade  them  to  forsake  their  homes  and  the  wild  free 
life  that  was  so  dear  to  them,  and  go  with  him  and 
surrender  to  the  hated  Whites  and  live  under  their 
watch  and  ward,  and  upon  their  charity  the  rest  of 
their  lives !  On  its  face  it  was  the  dream  of  a 
madman. 

In  the  beginning,  his  moral-suasion  project  was 
sarcastically  dubbed  the  sugar-plum  speculation.  If 
the  scheme  was  striking,  and  new  to  the  world's 
experience,  the  situation  was  *not  less  so.  It  was 
this.  The  White  population  numbered  40,000  in 
1831;  the  Black  population  numbered  three  hun 
dred.  Not  300  warriors,  but  300  men,  women, 
and  children.  The  Whites  were  armed  with  guns, 
the  Blacks  with  clubs  and  spears.  The  Whites 
had  fought  the  Blacks  for  a  quarter  of  a  century, 
and  had  tried  every  thinkable  way  to  capture,  kill, 
or  subdue  them  ;  and  could  not  do  it.  If  white  men 
of  any  race  could  have  done  it,  these  would  have 
accomplished  it.  But  every  scheme  had  failed,  the 
splendid  300,  the  matchless  300  were  unconquered, 
and  manifestly  unconquerable.  They  would  not 
yield,  they  would  listen  to  no  terms,  they  would 
fight  to  the  bitter  end.  Yet  they  had  no  poet  to 
keep  up  their  heart,  and  sing  the  marvel  of  their 
magnificent  patriotism. 

At  the  end  of  five-and-twenty  years  of  hard  fight 
ing,  the  surviving  300  naked  patriots  were  still  de- 


268  Following  the  Equator 

fiant,  still  persistent,  still  efficacious  with  their  rude 
weapons,  and  the  governor  and  the  40,000  knew 
not  which  way  to  turn,  nor  what  to  do. 

Then  the  Bricklayer  —  that  wonderful  man  —  pro 
posed  to  go  out  into  the  wilderness,  with  no  weapon 
but  his  tongue,  and  no  protection  but  his  honest 
eye  and  his  humane  heart,  and  track  those  em 
bittered  savages  to  their  lairs  in  the  gloomy  forests 
and  among  the  mountain  snows.  Naturally,  he  was 
considered  a  crank.  But  he  wras  not  quite  that.  In 
fact,  he  was  a  good  way  short  of  that.  He  was 
building  upon  his  long  and  intimate  knowledge  of 
the  native  character.  The  deriders  of  his  project 
were  right  —  from  their  standpoint  —  for  they  be 
lieved  the  natives  to  be  mere  wild  beasts;  and 
Robinson  was  right,  from  his  standpoint  —  for  he 
believed  the  natives  to  be  human  beings.  The  truth 
did  really  lie  between  the  two.  The  event  proved 
that  Robinson's  judgment  was  soundest;  but  about 
once  a  month  for  four  years  the  event  came  near  to 
giving  the  verdict  to  the  deriders,  for  about  that  fre 
quently  Robinson  barely  escaped  falling  under  the 
native  spears. 

But  history  shows  that  he  had  a  thinking  head, 
and  was  not  a  mere  wild  sentimentalist.  For  in 
stance,  he  wanted  the  war  parties  called  in  before 
he  started  unarmed  upon  his  mission  of  peace. 
He  wanted  the  best  chance  of  success  —  not  a  half- 
chance.  And  he  was  very  willing  to  have  help ; 
and  so,  high  rewards  were  advertised,  for  any  who 


Following  the  Equator  269 

woukl  go  unarmed  with  him.  This  opportunity  was 
declined.  Robinson  persuaded  some  tamed  natives 
of  both  sexes  to  go  with  him  —  a  strong  evidence  of 
his  persuasive  powers,  for  those  natives  well  knew 
that  their  destruction  would  be  almost  certain.  As 
it  turned  out,  they  had  to  face  death  over  and  over 
again. 

Robinson  and  his  little  party  had  a  difficult  under 
taking  upon  their  hands.  They  could  not  ride  off, 
horseback,  comfortably  into  the  woods  and  call 
Leonidas  and  his  300  together  for  a  talk  and  a  treaty 
the  following  day ;  for  the  wild  men  were  not  in  a 
body;  they  were  scattered,  immense  distances  apart, 
over  regions  so  desolate  that  even  the  birds  could 
not  make  a  living  with  the  chances  offered  —  scat 
tered  in  groups  of  twenty,  a  dozen,  half  a  dozen, 
even  in  groups  of  three.  And  the  mission  must  go 
on  foot.  Mr.  Bonwick  furnishes  a  description  of 
those,  horrible  regions,  whereby  it  will  be  seen  that 
even  fugitive  gangs  of  the  hardiest  and  choicest 
human  devils  the  world  has  seen  —  the  convicts  set 
apart  to  people  the  "  Hell  of  Macquarrie  Harbor 
Station" — were  never  able,  but  once,  to  survive 
the  horrors  of  a  march  through  them,  but,  starving 
and  struggling,  and  fainting  and  failing,  ate  each 
other,  and  died : 

"  Onward,  still  onward,  was  the  order  of  the  indomitable  Robinson. 
No  one  ignorant  of  the  western  country  of  Tasmania  can  form  a  correct 
idea  of  the  traveling  difficulties.  While  I  was  resident  in  Hobart  Town, 
the  Governor,  Sir  John  Franklin,  and  his  lady,  undertook  the  western 
journey  to  Macquarrie  Harbor,  and  suffered  terribly.  One  man  who 


270  Following  the  Equator 

assisted  to  carry  her  ladyship  through  the  swamps,  gave  me  his  bitter 
experience  of  its  miseries.  Several  were  disabled  for  life.  No  wonder 
that  but  one  party,  escaping  from  Macquarrie  Harbor  convict  settlement, 
arrived  at  the  civilized  region  in  safety.  Men  perished  in  the  scrub, 
were  lost  in  snow,  or  were  devoured  by  their  companions.  This  was 
the  territory  traversed  by  Mr.  Robinson  and  his  Black  guides.  All 
honor  to  his  intrepidity,  and  their  wonderful  fidelity  !  When  they  had, 
in  the  depth  of  winter,  to  cross  deep  and  rapid  rivers,  pass  among 
mountains  six  thousand  feet  high,  pierce  dangerous  thickets,  and  find 
food  in  a  countrv  forsaken  even  by  birds,  we  can  realize  their  hard 
ships. 

"After  a  frightful  journey  by  Cradle  Mountain,  and  over  the  lofty 
plateau  of  Middlesex  Plains,  the  travelers  experienced  unwonted  misery, 
and  the  circumstances  called  forth  the  best  qualities  of  the  noble  little 
band.  Mr.  Robinson  wrote  afterwards  to  Mr.  Secretary  Burnett  some 
details  of  this  passage  of  horrors.  In  that  letter,  of  October  2,  1834, 
he  states  that  his  Natives  were  very  reluctant  to  go  over  the  dreadful 
mountain  passes;  that  '  for  seven  successive  days  we  continued  travel 
ing  over  one  solid  body  of  snow;'  that  'the  snows  were  of  incredible 
depth;'  that  'the  Natives  were  frequently  up  to  their  middle  in  snow.' 
But  still  the  ill-clad,  ill-fed,  diseased,  and  wayworn  men  and  women 
were  sustained  by  the  cheerful  voice  of  their  unconquerable  friend,  and 
responded  most  noblv  to  his  call." 

Mr.  Bonwick  says  that  Robinson's  friendly  capture 
of  the  Big  River  tribe  —  remember,  it  was  a  whole 
tribe — "  was  by  far  the  grandest  feature  of  the  war, 
and  the  crowning  glory  of  his  efforts."  The  word 
"war  "was  not  well  chosen,  and  is  misleading. 
There  was  war  still,  but  only  the  Blacks  were  con 
ducting  it  —  the  Whites  were  holding  off  until  Rob 
inson  could  give  his  scheme  a  fair  trial.  I  think 
that  we  are  to  understand  that  the  friendly  capture 
of  that  tribe  was  by  far  the  most  important  thing, 
the  highest  in  value,  that  happened  during  the  whole 
thirty  years  of  truceless  hostilities;  that  it  was  a 


Following  the  Equator  271 

decisive  thing,  a  peaceful  Waterloo,  the  surrender  of 
the  native  Napoleon  and  his  dreaded  forces,  the 
happy  ending  of  the  long  strife.  For  "that  tribe 
was  the  terror  of  the  colony,"  its  chief  "  the  Black 
Douglas  of  Bush  households." 

Robinson  knew  that  these  formidable  people  were 
lurking  somewhere,  in  some  remote  corner  of  the 
hideous  regions  just  described,  and  he  and  his  un 
armed  little  party  started  on  a  tedious  and  perilous 
hunt  for  them.  At  last,  "  there,  under  the  shadows 
of  the  Frenchman's  Cap,  whose  grim  cone  rose  five 
thousand  feet  in  the  uninhabited  westward  inte 
rior,"  they  were  found.  It  was  a  serious  moment. 
Robinson  himself  believed,  for  once,  that  his  mis 
sion,  successful  until  now,  was  to  end  here  in  failure, 
and  that  his  own  death-hour  had  struck. 

The  redoubtable  chief  stood  in  menacing  attitude, 
with  his  eighteen-foot  spear  poised ;  his  warriors 
stood  massed  at  his  back,  armed  for  battle,  their 
faces  eloquent  with  their  long-cherished  loathing  for 
white  men.  "  They  rattled  their  spears  and  shouted 
their  war-cry."  Their  women  were  back  of  them, 
laden  with  supplies  of  weapons,  and  keeping  their 
150  eager  dogs  quiet  until  the  chief  should  give  the 
signal  to  fall  on. 

"I  think  we  shall  soon  be  in  the  resurrection," 
whispered  a  member  of  Robinson's  little  party. 

"I  think  we  shall,"  answered  Robinson;  then 
plucked  up  heart  and  began  his  persuasions  —  in  the 
tribe's  own  dialect,  which  surprised  and  pleased  the 


272  Following  the  Equator 

chief.  Presently  there  was  an  interruption  by  the 
chief: 

4 'Who  are  you?" 

"We  are  gentlemen." 

"  Where  are  your  guns?" 

"  We  have  none/' 

The  warrior  was  astonished. 

"  Where  your  little  guns?"  (pistols.) 

"  We  have  none." 

A  few  minutes  passed  —  in  by-play  —  suspense  — 
discussion  among  the  tribesmen  —  Robinson's  tamed 
squaws  ventured  to  cross  the  line  and  begin  per 
suasions  upon  the  wild  squaws.  Then  the  chief 
stepped  back  "  to  confer  with  the  old  women  —  the 
real  arbiters  of  savage  war."  Mr.  Bonwick  con 
tinues  : 

"As  the  fallen  gladiator  in  the  arena  looks  for  the  signal  of  life  or 
death  from  the  president  of  the  amphitheater,  so  waited  our  friends  in 
anxious  suspense  while  the  conference  continued.  In  a  few  minutes, 
before  a  word  was  uttered,  the  women  of  the  tribe  threw  up  their  arms 
three  times.  This  was  the  inviolable  sign  of  peace  1  Down '  fell  the 
spears.  Forward,  with  a  heavy  sigh  of  relief,  and  upward  glance  of 
gratitude,  came  the  friends  of  peace.  The  impulsive  natives  rushed 
forth  with  tears  and  cries,  as  each  saw  in  the  other's  ranks  a  loved,  one 
of  the  past.  .  . 

"  It  was  a  jubilee  of  joy.  A  festival  followed.  And,  while  tears 
flowed  at  the  recital  of  woe,  a  corrobory  of  pleasant  laughter  closed  the 
eventful  day." 

In  four  years,  without  the  spilling  of  a  drop  of 
blood,  Robinson  brought  them  all  in,  willing  captives, 
and  delivered  them  to  the  white  governor,  and 
ended  the  war  which  powder  and  bullets,  and  thou- 


Following  the  Equator  273 

sands  of  men  to  use  them,  had  prosecuted  without 
result  since  1804. 

Marsyas  charming  the  wild  beasts  with  his  music 
—  that  is  fable ;  but  the  miracle  wrought  by  Robin 
son  is  fact.  It  is  history  —  and  authentic;  and 
surely,  there  is  nothing  greater,  nothing  more  rev 
erence-compelling  in  the  history  of  any  country, 
ancient  or  modern. 

And  in  memory  of  the  greatest  man  Australasia 
ever  developed  or  ever  will  develop,  there  is  a.  stately 
monument  to  George  Augustus  Robinson,  the  Con 
ciliator,  in  —  no,  it  is  to  another  man,  I  forget  his 
name. 

However,  Robinson's  own  generation  honored 
him,  and  in  manifesting  it  honored  themselves. 
The  Government  gave  him  a  money  reward  and  a 
thousand  acres  of  land ;  and  the  people  held  mass- 
meetings  and  praised  him  and  emphasized  their  praise 
with  a  large  subscription  of  money. 

A  good  dramatic  situation ;  but  the  curtain  fell  on 
another : 

"  When  this  desperate  tribe  was  thus  captured,  there  was  much  sur 
prise  to  find  that  the  ,£30,000  of  a  little  earlier  day  had  been  spent,  and 
the  whole  population  of  the  colony  placed  under  arms,  in  contention 
with  an  opposing  force  of  sixteen  men  with  wooden  spears!  Yet  such 
was  the  fact.  The  celebrated  Big  River  tribe,  that  had  been  raised  by 
European  fears  to  a  host,  consisted  of  sixteen  men,  nine  women,  and 
one  child.  With  a  knowledge  of  the  mischief  done  by  these  few,  their 
wonderful  marches  and  their  widespread  aggressions,  their  enemies  can 
not  deny  to  them  the  attributes  of  courage  and  military  tact.  A  Wallace 
might  harass  a  large  army  with  a  small  and  determined  band;  but  the 
contending  parties  were  at  least  equal  in  arms  and  civilization.  The 
18. 


274  Following  the  Equator 

Zulus  who  fought  us  in  Africa,  the  Maoris  in  New  Zealand,  the  Arabs 
in  the  Soudan,  were  far  better  provided  with  weapons,  more  advanced 
in  the  science  of  war,  and  considerably  more  numerous,  than  the  naked 
Tasmanians.  Governor  Arthur  rightly  termed  them  a  noble  race" 

These  were  indeed  wonderful  people,  the  natives. 
They  ought  not  to  have  been  wasted.  They  should 
have  been  crossed  with  the  Whites.  It  would 
have  improved  the  Whites  and  done  the  Natives 
no  harm. 

But  the  Natives  were  wasted,  poor  heroic  wild 
creatures.  They  were  gathered  together  in  little 
settlements  on  neighboring  islands,  and  paternally 
cared  for  by  the  government,  and  instructed  in  re 
ligion,  and  deprived  of  tobacco,  because  the  sup 
erintendent  of  the  Sunday-school  was  not  a  smoker, 
and  so  considered  smoking  immoral. 

The  Natives  were  not  used  to  clothes,  and  houses, 
and  regular  hours,  and  church,  and  school,  and 
Sunday-school,  and  work,  and  the  other  misplaced 
persecutions  of  civilization,  and  they  pined  for  their 
lost  home  and  their  wild,  free  life.  Too  late  they 
repented  that  they  had  traded  that  heaven  for  this 
hell.  They  sat  homesick  on  their  alien  crags,  and 
day  by  day  gazed  out  through  their  tears  over  the 
sea  with  unappeasable  longing  toward  the  hazy 
bulk  which  was  the  specter  of  what  had  been  their 
paradise;  one  by  one  their  hearts  broke  and  they 
died. 

In  a  very  few  years  nothing  but  a  scant  remnant 
remained  alive.  A  handful  lingered  along  into  age. 


Following  the  Equator  275 

In  1864  the  last  man  died,  in  1876  the  last  woman 
died,  and  the  Spartans  of  Australasia  were  extinct. 

The  Whites  always  mean  well  when  they  take  human 
fish  out  of  the  ocean  and  try  to  make  them  dry  and 
warm  and  happy  and  comfortable  in  a  chicken  coop ; 
but  the  kindest-hearted  white  man  can  always  be 
depended  on  to  prove  himself  inadequate  when  he 
deals  with  savages.  He  cannot  turn  the  situation 
around  and  imagine  how  he  would  like  it  to  have  a 
well-meaning  savage  transfer  him  from  his  house 
and  his  church  and  his  clothes  and  his  books  and 
his  choice  food  to  a  hideous  wilderness  of  sand 
and  rocks  and  snow,  and  ice  and  sleet  and  storm  and 
blistering  sun,  with  no  shelter,  no  bed,  no  covering 
for  his  and  his  family's  naked  bodies,  and  nothing 
to  eat  but  snakes  and  grubs  and  offal.  This  would 
be  a  hell  to  him ;  and  if  he  had  any  wisdom  he  would 
know  that  his  own  civilization  is  a  hell  to  the  savage 
—  but  he  hasn't  any,  and  has  never  had  any;  and 
for  lack  of  it  he  shut  up  those  poor  natives  in  the 
unimaginable  perdition  of  his  civilization,  committing 
his  crime  with  the  very  best  intentions,  and  saw 
those  poor  creatures  waste  away  under  his  tortures ; 
and  gazed  at  it,  vaguely  troubled  and  sorrowful,  and 
wondered  what  could  be  the  matter  with  them.  One 
is  almost  betrayed  into  respecting  those  criminals, 
they  were  so  sincerely  kind,  and  tender,  and  humane, 
and  well-meaning. 

They  didn't  know  why  those  exiled  savages  faded 
away,  and  they  did  their  honest  best  to  reason  it  out. 
B» 


276  Following  the  Equator 

And  one  man,  in  a  like  case,  in  New  South  Wales, 
did  reason  it  out  and  arrive  at  a  solution : 

44  //  is  from  the  wrath  of  God,  which  is  revealed 
from  heaven  against  all  ungodliness  and  unrighteous 
ness  of  men." 

That  settles  it. 


CHAPTER   XXVIII. 

Let  us  be  thankful  for  the  fools.  But  for  them  the  rest  of  us  could  not  suc 
ceed. — Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

THE  aphorism  does  really  seem  true :  ' '  Given  the 
Circumstances,  the  Man  will  appear."  But  the 
man  mustn't  appear  ahead  of  time,  or  it  will  spoil 
everything.  In  Robinson's  case  the  Moment  had 
been  approaching  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  —  and 
meantime  the  future  Conciliator  was  tranquilly  laying 
bricks  in  Hobart.  When  all  other  means  had  failed, 
the  Moment  had  arrived,  and  the  Bricklayer  put 
down  his  trowel  and  came  forward.  Earlier  he 
would  have  been  jeered  back  to  his  trowel  again. 
It  reminds  me  of  a  tale  that  was  told  me  by  a  Ken- 
tuckian  on  the  train  when  we  were  crossing  Montana. 
He  said  the  tale  was  current  in  Louisville  years  ago. 
He  thought  it  had  been  in  print,  but  could  not  re 
member.  At  any  rate,  in  substance  it  was  this,  as 
nearly  as  I  can  call  it  back  to  mind. 

A  few  years  before  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War 
it  began  to  appear  that  Memphis,  Tennessee,  was 
going  to  be  a  great  tobacco  entrepot — the  wise 
could  see  the  signs  of  it.  At  that  time  Memphis  had 

(277) 


278  Following  the  Equator 

a  wharfboat,  of  course.  There  was  a  paved  sloping 
wharf,  for  the  accommodation  of  freight,  but  the 
steamers  landed  on  the  outside  of  the  wharfboat,  and 
all  loading  and  unloading  was  done  across  it,  be 
tween  steamer  and  shore.  A  number  of  wharfboat 
clerks  were  needed,  and  part  of  the  time,  every  day, 
they  were  very  busy,  and  part  of  the  time  tediously 
idle.  They  were  boiling  over  with  youth  and  spirits, 
and  they  had  to  make  the  intervals  of  idleness 
endurable  in  some  way;  and  as  a  rule,  they  did  it 
by  contriving  practical  jokes  and  playing  them  upon 
each  other. 

The  favorite  butt  for  the  jokes  was  Ed  Jackson, 
because  he  played  none  himself,  and  was  easy  game 
for  other  people's  —  for  he  always  believed  what 
ever  was  told  him. 

One  day  he  told  the  others  his  scheme  for  his 
holiday.  He  was  not  going  fishing  or  hunting  this 
time  —  no,  he  had  thought  out  a  better  plan.  Out 
of  his  $40  a  month  he  had  saved  enough  for  his 
purpose,  in  an  economical  way,  and  he  was  going 
to  have  a  look  at  New  York. 

It  was  a  great  and  surprising  idea.  It  meant  travel 
—  immense  travel  —  in  those  days  it  meant  seeing 
the  world ;  it  was  the  equivalent  of  a  voyage  around 
it  in  ours.  At  first  the  other  youths  thought  his 
mind  was  affected,  but  when  they  found  that  he  was 
in  earnest,  the  next  thing  to  be  thought  of  was,  what 
sort  of  opportunity  this  venture  might  afford  for 
a  practical  joke. 


Following  the  Equator  279 

The  young  men  studied  over  the  matter,  then  held 
a  secret  consultation  and  made  a  plan.  The  idea 
was,  that  one  of  the  conspirators  should  offer  Ed  a 
letter  of  introduction  to  Commodore  Vanderbilt,  and 
trick  him  into  delivering  it.  It  would  be  easy  to  do 
this.  But  what  would  Ed  do  when  he  got  back  to 
Memphis?  That  was  a  serious  matter.  He  was 
good-hearted,  and  had  always  taken  the  jokes  pa 
tiently;  but  they  had  been  jokes  which  did  not 
humiliate  him,  did  not  bring  him  to  shame;  whereas, 
this  would  be  a  cruel  one  in  that  way,  and  to  play  it 
was  to  meddle  with  fire ;  for  with  all  his  good  nature, 
Ed  was  a  Southerner  —  and  the  English  of  that  was, 
that  when  he  came  back  he  would  kill  as  many  of  the 
conspirators  as  he  could  before  falling  himself. 
However,  the  chances  must  be  taken  —  it  wouldn't 
do  to  waste  such  a  joke  as  that. 

So  the  letter  was  prepared  with  great  care  and 
elaboration.  It  was  signed  Alfred  Fairchild,  and  was 
written  in  an  easy  and  friendly  spirit.  It  stated  that 
the  bearer  was  the  bosom  friend  of  the  writer's  son, 
and  was  of  good  parts  and  sterling  character,  and  it 
begged  the  Commodore  to  be  kind  to  the  young 
stranger  for  the  writer's  sake.  It  went  on  to  say, 
"You  may  have  forgotten  me,  in  this  long  stretch 
of  time,  but  you  will  easily  call  me  back  out  of  your 
boyhood  memories  when  I  remind  you  of  how  we 
robbed  old  Stevenson's  orchard  that  night;  and  how, 
while  he  was  chasing  down  the  road  after  us,  we  cut 
across  the  field  and  doubled  back  and  sold  his  own 


280  Following  the  Equator 

apples  to  his  own  cook  for  a  hatful  of  doughnuts ; 
and  the  time  that  we — "  and  so  forth  and  so  on, 
bringing  in  names  of  imaginary  comrades,  and  de 
tailing  all  sorts  of  wild  and  absurd  and,  of  course, 
wholly  imaginary  schoolboy  pranks  and  adventures, 
but  putting  them  into  lively  and  telling  shape. 

With  all  gravity  Ed  was  asked  if  he  would  like  to 
have  a  letter  to  Commodore  Vanderbilt,  the  great 
millionaire.  It  was  expected  that  the  question  would 
astonish  Ed,  and  it  did. 

1 '  What  ?     Do  you  know  that  extraordinary  man  ?' ' 

"No;  but  my  father  does.  They  were  school 
boys  together.  And  if  you  like,  I'll  write  and  ask 
father.  I  know  he'll  be  glad  to  give  it  to  you  for 
my  sake." 

Ed  could  not  find  words  capable  of  expressing  his 
gratitude  and  delight.  The  three  days  passed,  and 
the  letter  was  put  into  his  hands.  He  started  on  his 
trip,  still  pouring  out  his  thanks  while  he  shook  good 
bye  all  around.  And  when  he  was  out  of  sight  his 
comrades  let  fly  their  laughter  in  a  storm  of  happy 
satisfaction  —  and  then  quieted  down,  and  were  less 
happy,  less  satisfied.  For  the  old  doubts  as  to  the 
wisdom  of  this  deception  began  to  intrude  again. 

Arrived  in  New  York,  Ed  found  his  way  to  Com 
modore  Vanderbilt' s  business  quarters,  and  was 
ushered  into  a  large  anteroom,  where  a  score  of 
people  were  patiently  awaiting  their  turn  for  a  two- 
minute  interview  with  the  millionaire  in  his  private 
office.  A  servant  asked  for  Ed's  card,  and  got  the 


Following  the  Equator  281 

letter  instead.     Ed  was  sent  for  a  moment  later,  and 
found  Mr.  Vanderbilt  alone,  with  the  letter  —  open 

—  in  his  hand. 

"  Pray  sit  down,  Mr. — er" — 

"Jackson." 

"Ah  —  sit  down,  Mr.  Jackson.  By  the  opening 
sentences  it  seems  to  be  a  letter  from  an  old  friend. 
Allow  me  —  I  will  run  my  eye  through  it.  He 
says  —  he  says  —  why,  who  is  it?"  He  turned  the 
sheet  and  found  the  signature.  "Alfred  Fairchild 

—  hm  —  Fairchild  —  I  don't  recall  the  name.     But 
that    is    nothing  —  a    thousand    names    have    gone 
from    me.     He    says  —  he    says  —  hm  —  hm  —  oh, 
dear,  but  it's  good!     Oh,  it's  rare!     I  don't  quite 
remember  it,  but  I  seem  to  —  it'll  all  come  back  to 
me    presently.     He    says  —  he   says  —  hm  —  hm  — 
oh,  but  that  was  a  game  !     Oh,  spl-endid  !     How  it 
carries   me  back!     It's  all  dim,   of  course  —  it's  a 
long   time    ago  —  and    the    names  —  some    of     the 
names  are  wavery  and  indistinct  —  but  sho',  I  know 
it  happened  —  I  can  feel  it!   and  lord,  how  it  warms 
my  heart,  and  brings  back  my  lost  youth !     Well, 
well,  well,  I've  got  to  come  back  into  this  work-a- 
day  world  now  —  business    presses    and  people  are 
waiting  —  I'll  keep  the  rest  for  bed  to-night,  and  live 
my  youth  over  again.     And  you'll  thank  Fairchild 
for  me  when  you  see  him  —  I  used  to  call  him  Alf , 
I  think  —  and  you'll  give  him  my  gratitude  for  what 
this  letter  has  done  for  the  tired  spirit   of  a  hard- 
worked   man;   and  tell  him  there  isn't  anything  that 


282  Following  the  Equator 

I  can  do  for  him  or  any  friend  of  his  that  I  won't  do. 
And  as  for  you,  my  lad,  you  are  my  guest;  you 
can't  stop  at  any  hotel  in  New  York.  Sit  where  you 
are  a  little  while,  till  I  get  through  with  these  people, 
then  we'll  go  home.  I'll  take  care  of  youy  my  boy 
—  make  yourself  easy  as  to  that. ' ' 

Ed  stayed  a  week,  and  had  an  immense  time  —  and 
never  suspected  that  the  Commodore's  shrewd  eyes 
was  on  him,  and  that  he  was  daily  being  weighed  and 
measured  and  analyzed  and  tried  and  tested. 

Yes,  he  had  an  immense  time;  and  never  wrote 
home,  but  saved  it  all  up  to  tell  when  he  should  get 
back.  Twice,  with  proper  modesty  and  decency, 
he  proposed  to  end  his  visit,  but  the  Commodore 
said,  "  No  —  wait;  leave  it  to  me;  I '11  tell  you  when 
to  go." 

In  those  days  the  Commodore  was  making  some 
of  those  vast  combinations  of  his  —  consolidations 
of  warring  odds  and  ends  of  railroads  into  harmoni 
ous  systems,  and  concentrations  of  floating  and  rud 
derless  commerce  in  effective  centers  —  and  among 
other  things  his  far-seeing  eye  had  detected  the  con 
vergence  of  that  huge  tobacco-commerce,  already 
spoken  of,  toward  Memphis,  and  he  had  resolved  to 
set  his  grasp  upon  it  and  make  it  his  own. 

The  week  came  to  an  end.  Then  the  Commodore 
said: 

"  Now  you  can  start  home.  But  first  we  will  have 
some  more  talk  about  that  tobacco  matter.  I  know 
you  now.  I  know  your  abilities  as  well  as  you  know 


Following  the  Equator  283 

them  yourself  —  perhaps  better.  You  understand 
that  tobacco  matter ;  you  understand  that  I  am  go 
ing  to  take  possession  of  it,  and  you  also  understand 
the  plans  which  I  have  matured  for  doing  it.  What 
I  want  is  a  man  who  knows  my  mind,  and  is  qualified 
to  represent  me  in  Memphis,  and  be  in  supreme 
command  of  that  important  business  —  and  I  ap 
point  you." 

"Me!  " 

"Yes.  Your  salary  will  be  high  —  of  course  — 
for  you  are  representing  me.  Later  you  will  earn 
increases  of  it,  and  will  get  them.  You  will  need  a 
small  army  of  assistants;  choose  them  yourself  — 
and  carefully.  Take  no  man  for  friendship's  sake; 
but,  all  things  being  equal,  take  the  man  you  know, 
take  your  friend,  in  preference  to  the  stranger." 

After  some  further  talk  under  this  head,  the  Com 
modore  said:  "  Good-bye,  my  boy,  and  thank  Alf 
for  me,  for  sending  you  to  me." 

When  Ed  reached  Memphis  he  rushed  down  to  the 
wharf  in  a  fever  to  tell  his  great  news  and  thank  the 
boys  over  and  over  again  for  thinking  to  give  him 
the  letter  to  Mr.  Vanderbilt.  It  happened  to  be  one 
of  those  idle  times.  Blazing  hot  noonday,  and  no 
sign  of  life  on  the  wharf.  But  as  Ed  threaded  his 
way  among  the  freight  piles,  he  saw  a  white  linen 
figure  stretched  in  slumber  upon  a  pile  of  grain-sacks 
under  an  awning,  and  said  to  himself,  "That's  one 
of  them,"  and  hastened  his  step;  next,  he  said, 
"It's  Charley  — it's  Fairchild  —  good  "  ;  and  the 


284  Following  the  Equator 

next  moment  laid  an  affectionate  hand  on  the  sleeper's 
shoulder.  The  eyes  opened  lazily,  took  one  glance, 
the  face  blanched,  the  form  whirled  itself  from  the 
sack-pile,  and  in  an  instant  Ed  was  alone  and  Fair- 
child  was  flying  for  the  wharfboat  like  the  wind ! 

Ed  was  dazed,  stupefied.  Was  Fairchild  crazy? 
What  could  be  the  meaning  of  this?  He  started 
slow  and  dreamily  down  toward  the  wharfboat; 
turned  the  corner  of  a  freight-pile  and  came  sud 
denly  upon  two  of  the  boys.  They  were  lightly 
laughing  over  some  pleasant  matter ;  they  heard  his 
step,  and  glanced  up  just  as  he  discovered  them; 
the  laugh  died  abruptly;  and  before  Ed  could  speak 
they  were  off,  and  sailing  over  barrels  and  bales  like 
hunted  deer.  Again  Ed  was  paralyzed.  Had  the 
boys  all  gone  mad?  What  could  be  the  explanation 
of  this  extraordinary  conduct?  And  so,  dreaming 
along,  he  reached  the  wharfboat,  and  stepped  aboard 
—  nothing  but  silence  there,  and  vacancy.  He 
crossed  the  deck,  turned  the  corner  to  go  down  the 
outer  guard,  heard  a  fervent  — 

"  O  Lord  !  "  and  saw  a  white  linen  form  plunge 
overboard. 

The  youth  came  up  coughing  and  strangling,  and 
cried  out: 

"Go  'way  from  here!  You  let  me  alone.  / 
didn't  do  it,  I  swear  I  didn't!  " 

"Didn't  do  what?" 

"Give  you  the—" 

"  Never  mind  what  you  didn't  do  —  come  out  of 


Following  the  Equator  285 

that  !  What  makes  you  all  act  so  ?  What  have  / 
done?" 

"You?  Why  you  haven't  done  anything. 
But—" 

"Well,  then,  what  have  you  got  against  me? 
What  do  you  all  treat  me  so  for  ?  '  ' 

44  1  —  er  —  but  haven't  you  got  anything  against 


1  ' 


Of  course  not.  What  put  such  a  thing  into  your 
head?" 

'*  Honor  bright  —  you  haven't?  " 

4  'Honor  bright." 

44  Swear  it!" 

44  1  don't  know  what  in  the  world  you  mean,  but 
I  swear  it,  anyway." 

4  'And  you'll  shake  hands  with  me?  " 

44  Goodness  knows  I'll  be  glad  to!  Why,  I'm 
just  starving  to  shake  hands  with  somebody  !  " 

The  swimmer  muttered,  44  Hang  him,  he  smelt  a 
rat  and  never  delivered  the  letter  !  —  but  it's  all  right, 
I'm  not  going  to  fetch  up  the  subject."  And  he 
crawled  out  and  came  dripping  and  draining  to  shake 
hands.  First  one  and  then  another  of  the  con 
spirators  showed  up  cautiously  —  armed  to  the  teeth 
—  took  in  the  amicable  situation,  then  ventured 
warily  forward  and  joined  the  love-feast. 

And  to  Ed's  eager  inquiry  as  to  what  made  them 
act  as  they  had  been  acting,  they  answered  evasively 
and  pretended  that  they  had  put  it  up  as  a  joke,  to 
see  what  he  would  do.  It  was  the  best  explanation 


286  Following  the  Equator 

they  could  invent  at  such  short  notice.  And  each 
said  to  himself,  "  He  never  delivered  that  letter,  and 
the  joke  is  on  us,  if  he  only  knew  it  or  we  were  dull 
enough  to  come  out  and  tell." 

Then,  of  course,  they  wanted  to  know  all  about 
the  trip  ;  and  he  said  : 

"  Come  right  up  on  the  boiler  deck  and  order  the 
drinks  —  it's  my  treat.  I'm  going  to  tell  you  all 
about  it.  And  to-night  it's  my  treat  again  —  and 
we'll  have  oysters  and  a  time !  " 

When  the  drinks  were  brought  and  cigars  lighted, 
Ed  said : 

"Well,  when  I  delivered  the  letter  to  Mr. 
Vanderbilt—  " 

"Great  Scott!" 

"  Gracious,  how  you  scared  me.  What's  the 
matter?" 

"Oh  —  er  —  nothing.  Nothing — it  was  a  tack 
in  the  chair-seat,"  said  one. 

"But  you  all  said  it.  However,  no  matter. 
When  I  delivered  the  letter — " 

1 '  Did  you  deliver  it  ?  "  And  they  looked  at  each 
other  as  people  might  who  thought  that  maybe  they 
were  dreaming. 

Then  they  settled  to  listening ;  and  as  the  story  deep 
ened  and  its  marvels  grew,  the  amazement  of  it  made 
them  dumb,  and  the  interest  of  it  took  their  breath. 
They  hardly  uttered  a  whisper  during  two  hours,  but 
sat  like  petrifactions  and  drank  in  the  immortal  ro 
mance.  At  last  the  tale  was  ended,  and  Ed  said : 


Following  the  Equator  287 

"And  it's  all  owing  to  you,  boys,  and  you'll  never 
find  me  ungrateful  —  bless  your  hearts,  the  best 
friends  a  fellow  ever  had!  You'll  all  have  places; 
I  want  every  one  of  you.  I  know  you  —  I  know 
you  'by  the  back?  as  the  gamblers  say.  You're 
jokers,  and  all  that,  but  you're  sterling,  with  the  hall 
mark  on.  And  Charley  Fairchild,  you  shall  be  my 
first  assistant  and  right  hand,  because  of  your  first- 
class  ability,  and  because  you  got  me  the  letter,  and 
for  your  father's  sake  who  wrote  it  for  me,  and  to 
please  Mr.  Vanderbilt,  who  said  it  would !  And 
here's  to  that  great  man  —  drink  hearty  !  " 

Yes,  when  the  Moment  comes,  the  Man  appears 
—  even  if  he  is  a  thousand  miles  away,  and  has  to 
be  discovered  by  a  practical  joke. 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 

When  people  do  not  respect  us  we  are  sharply  offended  ;  yet  deep  down  in 
his  private  heart  no  man  much  respects  himself. 

— Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

NECESSARILY,  the  human  interest  is  the  first  in 
terest  in  the  log-book  of  any  country.  The 
annals  of  Tasmania,  in  whose  shadow  we  were  sail 
ing,  are  lurid  with  that  feature.  Tasmania  was  a 
convict-dump,  in  old  times;  this  has  been  indicated 
in  the  account  of  the  Conciliator,  where  reference 
is  made  to  vain  attempts  of  desperate  convicts 
to  win  to  permanent  freedom,  after  escaping  from 
Macquarrie  Harbor  and  the  "  Gates  of  Hell." 
In  the  early  days  Tasmania  had  a  great  population 
of  convicts,  of  both  sexes  and  all  ages,  and  a  bitter 
hard  life  they  had.  In  one  spot  there  was  a  settle 
ment  of  juvenile  convicts  —  children  —  who  had 
been  sent  thither  from  their  home  and  their  friends 
on  the  other  side  of  the  globe  to  expiate  their 
"crimes." 

In  due  course  our  ship  entered  the  estuary  called 
the  Derwent,  at  whose  head  stands  Hobart,  the  cap 
ital  of  Tasmania.  The  Derwent' s  shores  furnish 

(288) 


Following  the  Equator  289 

scenery  of  an  interesting  sort.  The  historian 
Laurie,  whose  book,  "The  Story  of  Australasia," 
is  just  out,  invoices  its  features  with  considerable 
truth  and  intemperance :  ' '  The  marvelous  pictur- 
esqueness  of  every  point  of  view,  combined  with 
the  clear  balmy  atmosphere  and  the  transparency  of 
the  ocean  depths,  must  have  delighted  and  deeply 
impressed"  the  early  explorers.  "  If  the  rock- 
bound  coasts,  sullen,  defiant,  and  lowering,  seemed 
uninviting,  these  were  occasionally  broken  into 
charmingly  alluring  coves  floored  with  golden  sand, 
clad  with  evergreen  shrubbery,  and  adorned  with 
every  variety  of  indigenous  wattle,  she-oak,  wild 
flower,  and  fern,  from  the  delicately  graceful 
4  maiden-hair  '  to  the  palm-like  '  old  man  ' ;  while 
the  majestic  gum-tree,  clean  and  smooth  as  the  mast 
of  '  some  tall  ammiral/  pierces  the  clear  air  to  the 
height  of  230  feet  or  more." 

It  looked  so  to  me.  "  Coasting  along  Tasman's 
Peninsula,  what  a  shock  of  pleasant  wonder  must 
have  struck  the  early  mariner  on  suddenly  sighting 
Cape  Pillar,  with  its  cluster  of  black-ribbed  basaltic 
columns  rising  to  a  height  of  900  feet,  the  hydra 
head  wreathed  in  a  turban  of  fleecy  cloud,  the  base 
lashed  by  jealous  waves  spouting  angry  fountains  of 
foam." 

That  is  well  enough,  but  I  did  not  suppose  those 

snags  were  900  feet  high.     Still  they  were  a  very 

fine  show.     They  stood  boldly  out  by  themselves, 

and  made  a  fascinatingly  odd  spectacle.     But  there 

19. 


290  Following  the  Equator 

was  nothing  about  their  appearance  to  suggest  the 
heads  of  a  hydra.  They  looked  like  a  row  of  lofty 
slabs  with  their  upper  ends  tapered  to  the  shape  of 
a  carving-knife  point;  in  fact,  the  early  voyager, 
ignorant  of  their  great  height,  might  have  mistaken 
them  for  a  rusty  old  rank  of  piles  that  had  sagged 
this  way  and  that  out  of  the  perpendicular. 

The  Peninsula  is  lofty,  rocky,  and  densely  clothed 
with  scrub,  or  brush,  or  both.  It  is  joined  to  the 
main  by  a  low  neck.  At  this  junction  was  formerly 
a  convict  station  called  Port  Arthur  —  a  place  hard 
to  escape  from.  Behind  it  was  the  wilderness  of 
scrub,  in  which  a  fugitive  would  soon  starve;  in 
front  was  the  narrow  neck,  with  a  cordon  of  chained 
dogs  across  it,  and  a  line  of  lanterns,  and  a  fence  of 
living  guards,  armed.  We  saw  the  place  as  we 
swept  by  —  that  is,  we  had  a  glimpse  of  what  we 
were  told  was  the  entrance  to  Port  Arthur.  The 
glimpse  was  worth  something,  as  a  remembrancer, 
but  that  was  all. 

'  *  The  voyage  thence  up  the  Derwent  Frith  dis 
plays  a  grand  succession  of  fairy  visions,  in  its  entire 
length  elsewhere  unequaled.  In  gliding  over  the 
deep  blue  sea  studded  with  lovely  islets  luxuriant  to 
the  water's  edge,  one  is  at  a  loss  which  scene  to 
choose  for  contemplation  and  to  admire  most. 
When  the  Huon  and  Bruni  have  been  passed,  there 
seems  no  possible  chance  of  a  rival;  but  suddenly 
Mount  Wellington,  massive  and  noble  like  his  brother 
Etna,  literally  heaves  in  sight,  sternly  guarded  on 


Following  the  Equator  291 

either  hand  by  Mounts  Nelson  and  Rumney ;  presently 
we  arrive  at  Sullivan's  Cove — Hobart!  " 

It  is  an  attractive  town.  It  sits  on  low  hills  that 
slope  to  the  harbor  —  a  harbor  that  looks  like  a  river, 
and  is  as  smooth  as  one.  Its  still  surface  is  pictured 
with  dainty  reflections  of  boats  and  grassy  banks  and 
luxuriant  foliage.  Back  of  the  town  rise  highlands 
that  are  clothed  in  woodland  loveliness,  and  over  the 
way  is  that  noble  mountain,  Wellington,  a  stately 
bulk,  a  most  majestic  pile.  How  beautiful  is  the 
whole  region,  for  form,  and  grouping,  and  opulence, 
and  freshness  of  foliage,  and  variety  of  color,  and 
grace  and  shapeliness  of  the  hills,  the  capes, 
the  promontories ;  and  then,  the  splendor  of  the 
sunlight,  the  dim  rich  distances,  the  charm  of 
the  water-glimpses !  And  it  was  in  this  para 
dise  that  the  yellow-liveried  convicts  were  landed, 
and  the  Corps-bandits  quartered,  and  the  wanton 
slaughter  of  the  kangaroo-chasing  black  innocents 
consummated  on  that  autumn  day  in  May,  in 
the  brutish  old  time.  It  was  all  out  of  keeping 
with  the  place,  a  sort  of  bringing  of  heaven  and  hell 
together. 

The  remembrance  of  this  paradise  reminds  me  that 
it  was  at  Hobart  that  we  struck  the  head  of  the  pro 
cession  of  Junior  Englands.  We  were  to  encounter 
other  sections  of  it  in  New  Zealand,  presently,  and 
others  later  in  Natal.  Wherever  the  exiled  English 
man  can  find  in  his  new  home  resemblances  to  his 
old  one,  he  is  touched  to  the  marrow  of  his  being; 
s« 


292  Following  the  Equator 

the  love  that  is  in  his  heart  inspires  his  imagination, 
and  these  allied  forces  transfigure  those  resemblances 
into  authentic  duplicates  of  the  revered  originals. 
It  is  beautiful,  the  feeling  which  works  this  enchant 
ment,  and  it  compels  one's  homage;  compels  it,  and 
also  compels  one's  assent  —  compels  it  always  — 
even  when,  as  happens  sometimes,  one  does  not  see 
the  resemblances  as  clearly  as  does  the  exile  who  is 
pointing  them  out. 

The  resemblances  do  exist,  it  is  quite  true;  and 
often  they  cunningly  approximate  the  originals  — 
but  after  all,  in  the  matter  of  certain  physical  patent 
rights  there  is  only  one  England.  Now  that  I  have 
sampled  the  globe,  I  am  not  in  doubt.  There  is  a 
beauty  of  Switzerland,  and  it  is  repeated  in  the 
glaciers  and  snowy  ranges  of  many  parts  of  the 
earth;  there  is  a  beauty  of  the  fiord,  and  it  is  re 
peated  in  New  Zealand  and  Alaska ;  there  is  a  beauty 
of  Hawaii,  and  it  is  repeated  in  ten  thousand  islands 
of  the  Southern  seas ;  there  is  a  beauty  of  the  prairie 
and  the  plain,  and  it  is  repeated  here  and  there  in  the 
earth ;  each  of  these  is  worshipful,  each  is  perfect  in 
its  way,  yet  holds  no  monopoly  of  its  beauty;  but 
that  beauty  which  is  England  is  alone  —  it  has  no 
duplicate.  It  is  made  up  of  very  simple  details  — 
just  grass,  and  trees,  and  shrubs,  and  roads,  and 
hedges,  and  gardens,  and  houses,  and  vines,  and 
churches,  and  castles,  and  here  and  there  a  ruin  — 
and  over  it  all  a  mellow  dream-haze  of  history.  But 
its  beauty  is  incomparable,  and  all  its  own. 


Following  the  Equator  293 

Hobart  has  a  peculiarity  —  it  is  the  neatest  town 
that  the  sun  shines  on;  and  I  incline  to  believe 
that  it  is  also  the  cleanest.  However  that  may 
be,  its  supremacy  in  neatness  is  not  to  be  ques 
tioned.  There  cannot  be  another  town  in  the 
world  that  has  no  shabby  exteriors;  no  rickety 
gates  and  fences,  no  neglected  houses  crumbling 
to  ruin,  no  crazy  and  unsightly  sheds,  no  weed- 
grown  front-yards  of  the  poor,  no  back-yards 
littered  with  tin  cans  and  old  boots  and  empty 
bottles,  no  rubbish  in  the  gutters,  no  clutter  on 
the  sidewalks,  no  outer-borders  fraying  out  into 
dirty  lanes  and  tin-patched  huts.  No,  in  Hobart  all 
the  aspects  are  tidy,  and  all  a  comfort  to  the  eye ; 
the  modestest  cottage  looks  combed  and  brushed, 
and  has  its  vines,  its  flowers,  its  neat  fence, 
its  neat  gate,  its  comely  cat  asleep  on  the  window 
ledge. 

We  had  a  glimpse  of  the  museum,  by  courtesy  of 
the  American  gentleman  who  is  curator  of  it.  It 
has  samples  of  half-a-dozen  different  kinds  of  mar 
supials  * — one,  the  "Tasmanian  devil";  that  is,  I 
think  he  was  one  of  them.  And  there  was  a  fish 
with  lungs.  When  the  water  dries  up  it  can  live  in 
the  mud.  Most  curious  of  all  was  a  parrot  that  kills 

*  A  marsupial  is  a  plantigrade  vertebrate  whose  specialty  is  its  pocket. 
In  some  countries  it  is  extinct,  in  the  others  it  is  rare.  The  first  Ameri 
can  marsupials  were  Stephen  Girard,  Mr.  Astor,  and  the  opossum;  the 
principal  marsupials  of  the  Southern  Hemisphere  are  Mr.  Rhodes  and 
the  kangaroo.  I,  myself,  am  the  latest  marsupial.  Also,  I  might  boast 
that  I  have  the  largest  pocket  of  them  all.  But  there  is  nothing  in  that. 


294  Following  the  Equator 

sheep.  On  one  great  sheep-run  this  bird  killed  a 
thousand  sheep  in  a  whole  year.  He  doesn't  want 
the  whole  sheep,  but  only  the  kidney-fat.  This  re 
stricted  taste  makes  him  an  expensive  bird  to  sup 
port.  To  get  the  fat  he  drives  his  beak  in  and  rips 
it  out;  the  wound  is  mortal.  This  parrot  furnishes 
a  notable  example  of  evolution  brought  about  by 
changed  conditions.  When  the  sheep  culture  was 
introduced,  it  presently  brought  famine  to  the  parrot 
by  exterminating  a  kind  of  grub  which  had  always 
thitherto  been  the  parrot's  diet.  The  miseries  of 
hunger  made  the  bird  willing  to  eat  raw  flesh,  since 
it  could  get  no  other  food,  and  it  began  to  pick 
remnants  of  meat  from  sheep  skins  hung  out  on  the 
fences  to  dry.  It  soon  came  to  prefer  sheep  meat 
to  any  other  food,  and  by  and  by  it  came  to  prefer 
the  kidney-fat  to  any  other  detail  of  the  sheep.  The 
parrot's  bill  was  not  well  shaped  for  digging  out  the 
fat,  but  Nature  fixed  that  matter;  she  altered  the 
bill's  shape,  and  now  the  parrot  can  dig  out  kidney- 
fat  better  than  the  Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme 
Court,  or  anybody  else,  for  that  matter  —  even  an 
Admiral. 

And  there  was  another  curiosity  —  quite  a  stunning 
one,  I  thought :  Arrow-heads  and  knives  just  like  those 
which  Primeval  Man  made  out  of  flint,  and  thought 
he  had  done  such  a  wonderful  thing  —  yes,  and  has 
been  humored  and  coddled  in  that  superstition  by 
this  age  of  admiring  scientists  until  there  is  probably 
no  living  with  him  in  the  other  world  by  now.  Yet 


Following  the  Equator  295 

here  is  his  finest  and  nicest  work  exactly  duplicated 
in  our  day;  and  by  people  who  have  never  heard  of 
him  or  his  works:  by  aborigines  who  lived  in  the 
islands  of  these  seas,  within  our  time.  And  they 
not  only  duplicated  those  works  of  art  but  did  it  in 
the  brittlest  and  most  treacherous  of  substances  — 
glass  :  made  them  out  of  old  brandy  bottles  flung 
out  of  the  British  camps;  millions  of  tons  of  them. 
It  is  time1  for  Primeval  Man  to  make  a  little  less 
noise,  now.  He  has  had  his  day.  He  is  not  what 
he  used  to  be. 

We  had  a  drive  through  a  bloomy  and  odorous 
fairy-land,  to  the  Refuge  for  the  Indigent  —  a 
spacious  and  comfortable  home,  with  hospitals,  etc., 
for  both  sexes.  There  was  a  crowd  there,  of  the 
oldest  people  I  have  ever  seen.  It  was  like  being 
suddenly  set  down  in  a  new  world  —  a  weird  world 
where  Youth  has  never  been,  a  world  sacred  to  Age, 
and  bowed  forms,  and  wrinkles.  Out  of  the  359  per 
sons  present,  223  were  ex-convicts,  and  could  have 
told  stirring  tales,  no  doubt,  if  they  had  been  minded 
to  talk;  42  of  the  359  were  past  80,  and  several  were 
close  upon  90 ;  the  average  age  at  death  there  is  76 
years.  As  for  me,  I  have  no  use  for  that  place ;  it 
is  too  healthy.  Seventy  is  old  enough  —  after  that, 
there  is  too  much  risk.  Youth  and  gaiety  might 
vanish,  any  day  —  and  then,  what  is  left?  Death  in 
life;  death  without  its  privileges,  death  without  its 
benefits.  There  were  185  women  in  that  Refuge, 
and  8 1  of  them  were  ex-convicts. 


296  Following  the  Equator 

The  steamer  disappointed  us.  Instead  of  making 
a  long  visit  at  Hobart,  as  usual,  she  made  a  short 
one.  So  we  got  but  a  glimpse  of  Tasmania,  and 
then  moved  on. 


CHAPTER   XXX. 

Nature  makes  the  locust  with  an  appetite  for  crops ;  man  would  have  made 
him  with  an  appetite  for  sand.  —  Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

WE  spent  part  of  an  afternoon  and  a  night  at  sea, 
and  reached  Bluff,  in  New  Zealand,  early  in 
the  morning.  Bluff  is  at  the  bottom  of  the  middle 
island,  and  is  away  down  south,  nearly  forty-seven 
degrees  below  the  equator.  It  lies  as  far  south  of 
the  line  as  Quebec  lies  north  of  it,  and  the  climates  of 
the  two  should  be  alike ;  but  for  some  reason  or  other 
it  has  not  been  so  arranged.  Quebec  is  hot  in  the 
summer  and  cold  in  the  winter,  but  Bluff's  climate 
is  less  intense  ;  the  cold  weather  is  not  very  cold, 
the  hot  weather  is  not  very  hot ;  and  the  difference 
between  the  hottest  month  and  the  coldest  is  but  17 
degrees  Fahrenheit. 

In  New  Zealand  the  rabbit  plague  began  at  Bluff. 
The  man  who  introduced  the  rabbit  there  was  ban 
queted  and  lauded ;  but  they  would  hang  him,  now, 
if  they  could  get  him.  In  England  the  natural 
enemy  of  the  rabbit  is  detested  and  persecuted ;  in 
the  Bluff  region  the  natural  enemy  of  the  rabbit  is  hon 
ored,  and  his  person  is  sacred.  The  rabbit's  natural 
enemy  in  England  is  the  poacher ;  in  Bluff  its  natural 

(297) 


298  Following  the  Equator 

enemy  is  the  stoat,  the  weasel,  the  ferret,  the  cat, 
and  the  mongoose.  In  England  any  person  below 
the  Heir  who  is  caught  with  a  rabbit  in  his  posses 
sion  must  satisfactorily  explain  how  it  got  there,  or 
he  will  suffer  fine  and  imprisonment,  together  with 
extinction  of  his  peerage;  in  Bluff,  the  cat  found 
with  a  rabbit  in  its  possession  does  not  have  to  ex 
plain  —  everybody  looks  the  other  way ;  the  person 
caught  noticing  would  suffer  fine  and  imprisonment, 
with  extinction  of  peerage.  This  is  a  sure  way  to 
undermine  the  moral  fabric  of  a  cat.  Thirty  years 
from  now  there  will  not  be  a  moral  cat  in  New  Zea 
land.  Some  think  there  is  none  there  now.  In 
England  the  poacher  is  watched,  tracked,  hunted  — 
he  dare  not  show  his  face;  in  Bluff  the  cat,  the 
weasel,  the  stoat,  and  the  mongoose  go  up  and 
down,  whither  they  will,  unmolested.  By  a  law  of 
the  legislature,  posted  where  all  may  read,  it  is 
decreed  that  any  person  found  in  possession  of  one 
of  these  creatures  (dead)  must  satisfactorily  explain 
the  circumstances  or  pay  a  fine  of  not  less  than  £$ , 
nor  more  than  £20.  The  revenue  from  this  source 
is  not  large.  Persons  who  want  to  pay  a  hundred 
dollars  for  a  dead  cat  are  getting  rarer  and  rarer  every 
day.  This  is  bad,  for  the  revenue  was  to  go  to  the 
endowment  of  a  university.  All  governments  are 
more  or  less  short-sighted :  in  England  they  fine  a 
poacher,  whereas  he  ought  to  be  banished  to  New 
Zealand.  New  Zealand  would  pay  his  way,  and 
give  him  wages. 


Following  the  Equator  299 

It  was  from  Bluff  that  we  ought  to  have  cut  across 
to  the  west  coast  and  visited  the  New  Zealand 
Switzerland,  a  land  of  superb  scenery,  made  up  of 
snowy  grandeurs,  and  mighty  glaciers,  and  beautiful 
lakes;  and  over  there,  also,  are  the  wonderful  rivals 
of  the  Norwegian  and  Alaskan  fiords ;  and  for  neigh 
bor,  a  waterfall  of  1,900  feet;  but  we  were  obliged 
to  postpone  the  trip  to  some  later  and  indefinite  time. 

November  6.  A  lovely  summer  morning ;  brilliant 
blue  sky.  A  few  miles  out  from  Invercargill,  passed 
through  vast  level  green  expanses  snowed  over  with 
sheep.  Fine  to  see.  The  green,  deep  and  very 
vivid  sometimes;  at  other  times  less  so,  but  delicate 
and  lovely.  A  passenger  reminds  me  that  I  am  in 
"  the  England  of  the  Far  South." 

Dunedin,  same  date.  The  town  justifies  Michael 
Davitt's  praises.  The  people  are  Scotch.  They 
stopped  here  on  their  way  from  home  to  heaven  — 
thinking  they  had  arrived.  The  population  is  stated 
at  40,000,  by  Malcolm  Ross,  journalist;  stated  by 
an  M.  P.  at  60,000.  A  journalist  cannot  lie. 

To  the  residence  of  Dr.  Hockin.  He  has  a  fine 
collection  of  books  relating  to  New  Zealand ;  and 
his  house  is  a  museum  of  Maori  art  and  antiquities. 
He  has  pictures  and  prints  in  color  of  many  native 
chiefs  of  the  past  —  some  of  them  of  note  in  history. 
There  is  nothing  of  the  savage  in  the  faces ;  nothing 
could  be  finer  than  these  men's  features,  nothing 
more  intellectual  than  these  faces,  nothing  more 
masculine,  nothing  nobler  than  their  aspect.  The 


300  Following  the  Equator 

aboriginals  of  Australia  and  Tasmania  looked  the 
savage,  but  these  chiefs  looked  like  Roman  patricians. 
The  tattooing  in  these  portraits  ought  to  suggest 
the  savage,  of  course,  but  it  does  not.  The  designs 
are  so  flowing  and  graceful  and  beautiful  that  they 
are  a  most  satisfactory  decoration.  It  takes  but 
fifteen  minutes  to  get  reconciled  to  the  tattooing, 
and  but  fifteen  more  to  perceive  that  it  is  just  the 
thing.  After  that,  the  undecorated  European  face 
is  unpleasant  and  ignoble. 

Dr.  Hockin  gave  us  a  ghastly  curiosity — a  ligni- 
fied  caterpillar  with  a  plant  growing  out  of  the  back 
of  its  neck  —  a  plant  with  a  slender  stem  four  inches 
high.  It  happened  not  by  accident,  but  by  design 
—  Nature's  design.  This  caterpillar  was  in  the  act 
of  loyally  carrying  out  a  law  inflicted  upon  him  by 
Nature  —  a  law  purposely  inflicted  upon  him  to  get 
him  into  trouble  —  a  law  which  was  a  trap ;  in  pur 
suance  of  this  law  he  made  the  proper  preparations 
for  turning  himself  into  a  night-moth ;  that  is  to  say, 
he  dug  a  little  trench,  a  little  grave,  and  then 
stretched  himself  out  in  it  on  his  stomach  and 
partially  buried  himself  —  then  Nature  was  ready  for 
him.  She  blew  the  spores  of  a  peculiar  fungus 
through  the  air  —  with  a  purpose.  Some  of  them 
fell  into  a  crease  in  the  back  of  the  caterpillar's 
neck,  and  began  to  sprout  and  grow  —  for  there  was 
soil  there  —  he  had  not  washed  his  neck.  The  roots 
forced  themselves  down  into  the  worm's  person,  and 
rearward  along  through  its  body,  sucking  up  the 


Following  the  Equator  301 

creature's  juices  for  sap;  the  worm  slowly  died,  and 
turned  to  wood.  And  here  he  was  now,  a  wooden 
caterpillar,  with  every  detail  of  his  former  physique 
delicately  and  exactly  preserved  and  perpetuated, 
and  with  that  stem  standing  up  out  of  him  for  his 
monument  —  monument  commemorative  of  his  own 
loyalty  and  of  Nature's  unfair  return  for  it. 

Nature  is  always  acting  like  that.  Mrs.  X.  said 
(of  course)  that  the  caterpillar  was  not  conscious 
and  didn't  suffer.  She  should  have  known  better. 
No  caterpillar  can  deceive  Nature.  If  this  one 
couldn't  suffer,  Nature  would  have  known  it  and 
would  have  hunted  up  another  caterpillar.  Not  that 
she  would  have  let  this  one  go,  merely  because  it 
was  defective.  No.  She  would  have  waited  and  let 
him  turn  into  a  night-moth ;  and  then  fried  him  in 
the  candle. 

Nature  cakes  a  fish's  eyes  over  with  parasites,  so 
that  it  shan't  be  able  to  avoid  its  enemies  or  find  its 
food.  She  sends  parasites  into  a  star-fish's  system, 
which  clog  up  its  prongs  and  swell  them  and  make 
them  so  uncomfortable  that  the  poor  creature  de 
livers  itself  from  the  prong  to  ease  its  misery ;  and 
presently  it  has  to  part  with  another  prong  for  the 
sake  of  comfort,  and  finally  with  a  third.  If  it 
regrows  the  prongs,  the  parasite  returns  and  the 
same  thing  is  repeated.  And  finally,  when  the 
ability  to  reproduce  prongs  is  lost  through  age,  that 
poor  old  star-fish  can't  get  around  any  more,  and  so 
it  dies  of  starvation. 


302  Following  the  Equator 

In  Australia  is  prevalent  a  horrible  disease  due  to 
an  "  unperfected  tape-worm."  Unperfected  —  that 
is  what  they  call  it,  I  do  not  know  why,  for  it  trans 
acts  business  just  as  well  as  if  it  were  finished  and 
frescoed  and  gilded,  and  all  that. 

November  9.  To  the  museum  and  public  picture 
gallery  with  the  president  of  the  Society  of  Artists. 
Some  fine  pictures  there,  lent  by  the  S.  of  A. — 
several  of  them  they  bought,  the  others  came  to  them 
by  gift.  Next,  to  the  gallery  of  the  S.  of  A. — 
annual  exhibition  —  just  opened.  Fine.  Think  of 
a  town  like  this  having  two  such  collections  as  this, 
and  a  Society  of  Artists.  It  is  so  all  over  Aus 
tralasia.  If  it  were  a  monarchy  one  might  under 
stand  it.  I  mean  an  absolute  monarchy,  where  it 
isn't  necessary  to  vote  money,  but  take  it.  Then 
art  flourishes.  But  these  colonies  are  republics  — 
republics  with  a  wide  suffrage ;  voters  of  both  sexes, 
this  one  of  New  Zealand.  In  republics,  neither  the 
government  nor  the  rich  private  citizen  is  much 
given  to  propagating  art.  All  over  Australasia 
pictures  by  famous  European  artists  are  bought  for 
the  public  galleries  by  the  State  and  by  societies  of 
citizens.  Living  citizens  —  not  dead  ones.  They 
rob  themselves  to  give,  not  their  heirs.  This  S.  of 
A.  here  owns  its  building  —  built  it  by  subscription. 


CHAPTER  XXXI. 

The  spirit  of  wrath  —  not  the  words  —  is  the  sin  ;  and  the  spirit  of  wrath  is 
cursing.    We  begin  to  swear  before  we  can  talk. 

—  Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

NOVEMBER  II.  On  the  road.  This  train  — 
express  —  goes  twenty  and  one-half  miles  an 
hour,  schedule  time;  but  it  is  fast  enough,  the  out 
look  upon  sea  and  land  is  so  interesting,  and  the  cars 
so  comfortable.  They  are  not  English,  and  not 
American;  they  are  the  Swiss  combination  of  the 
two.  A  narrow  and  railed  porch  along  the  side, 
where  a  person  can  walk  up  and  down.  A  lavatory 
in  each  car.  This  is  progress;  this  is  nineteenth- 
century  spirit.  In  New  Zealand,  these  fast  expresses 
run  twice  a  week.  It  is  well  to  know  this  if  you 
want  to  be  a  bird  and  fly  through  the  country  at  a 
2O-mile  gait ;  otherwise  you  may  start  on  one  of  the 
five  wrong  days,  and  then  you  will  get  a  train  that 
can't  overtake  its  own  shadow. 

By  contrast,  these  pleasant  cars  call  to  mind  the 
branch-road  cars  at  Maryborough,  Australia,  and 
a  passenger's  talk  about  the  branch-road  and  the 
hotel. 

(303) 


304  Following  the  Equator 

Somewhere  on  the  road  to  Maryborough  I  changed 
for  a  while  to  a  smoking-carriage.  There  were  two 
gentlemen  there;  both  riding  backward,  one  at  each 
end  of  the  compartment.  They  were  acquaintances 
of  each  other.  I  sat  down  facing  the  one  that  sat  at 
the  starboard  window.  He  had  a  good  face,  and  a 
friendly  look,  and  I  judged  from  his  dress  that  he 
was  a  dissenting  minister.  He  was  along  toward 
fifty.  Of  his  own  motion  he  struck  a  match,  and 
shaded  it  with  his  hand  for  me  to  light  my  cigar.  I 
take  the  rest  from  my  diary : 

In  order  to  start  conversation  I  asked  him  some 
thing  about  Maryborough.  He  said,  in  a  most 
pleasant  —  even  musical  —  voice,  but  with  quiet  and 
cultured  decision : 

"  It's  a  charming  town,  with  a  hell  of  a  hotel." 

I  was  astonished.  It  seemed  so  odd  to  hear  a 
minister  swear  out  loud.  He  went  placidly  on: 

"It's  the  worst  hotel  in  Australia.  Well,  one 
may  go  further,  and  say  in  Australasia." 

"  Bad  beds?" 

"  No  —  none  at  all.     Just  sand-bags." 

"The  pillows,  too?" 

"Yes,  the  pillows,  too.  Just  sand.  And  not  a 
good  quality  of  sand.  It  packs  too  hard,  and  has 
never  been  screened.  There  is  too  much  gravel  in  it. 
It  is  like  sleeping  on  nuts." 

"  Isn't  there  any  good  sand?  " 

"  Plenty  of  it.  There  is  as  good  bed-sand  in  this 
region  as  the  world  can  furnish.  Aerated  sand  — 


Following  the  Equator  305 

and    loose;    but   they   won't    buy    it.       They    want 
something  that  will  pack  solid,  and  petrify." 

"  How  are  the  rooms?" 

"  Eight  feet  square;  and  a  sheet  of  iced  oil-cloth 
to  step  on  in  the  morning  when  you  get  out  of  the 
sand-quarry." 

"As  to  lights?" 

"  Coal  oil  lamp." 

"A  good  one?" 

"  No.     It's  the  kind  that  sheds  a  gloom." 

"  I  like  a  lamp  that  burns  all  night." 

"This  one  won't.     You  must  blow  it  out  early." 

"That  is  bad.  One  might  want  it  again  in  the 
night.  Can't  find  it  in  the  dark." 

'There's  no  trouble;  you  can  find  it  by  the 
stench." 

"Wardrobe?" 

"Two  nails  on  the  door  to  hang  seven  suits  of 
clothes  on — if  you've  got  them." 

"Bells?" 

"  There  aren't  any." 

"What  do  you  do  when  you  want  service?" 

"  Shout.     But  it  won't  fetch  anybody." 

Suppose  you  want  the  chambermaid  to  empty 
the  slop-jar?  " 

'There  isn't  any  slop-jar.  The  hotels  don't 
keep  them.  That  is,  outside  of  Sydney  and  Mel 
bourne." 

4  Yes,  I  knew  that.     I  was  only  talking.     It's  the 
oddest   thing   in   Australia.      Another   thing:     I've 
20* 


306  Following  the  Equator 

got  to  get  up  in  the  dark,  in  the  morning,  to  take 
the  5  o'clock  train.  Now  if  the  boots — " 

"  There  isn't  any." 

"Well,  the  porter.1' 

"There  isn't  any." 

"  But  who  will  call  me?  " 

"Nobody.  You'll  call  yourself.  And  you'll 
light  yourself,  too.  There'll  not  be  a  light  burning 
in  the  halls  or  anywhere.  And  if  you  don't  carry  a 
light,  you'll  break  your  neck." 

"  But  who  will  help  me  down  with  my  baggage?  " 

"  Nobody.  However,  I  will  tell  you  what  to  do. 
In  Maryborough  there's  an  American  who  has  lived 
there  half  a  lifetime;  a  fine  man,  and  prosperous 
and  popular.  He  will  be  on  the  lookout  for  you ; 
you  won't  have  any  trouble.  Sleep  in  peace;  he 
will  rout  you  out,  and  you  will  make  your  train. 
Where  is  your  manager?" 

"  I  left  him  at  Ballarat,  studying  the  language. 
And  besides,  he  had  to  go  to  Melbourne  and  get  us 
ready  for  New  Zealand.  I've  not  tried  to  pilot  my 
self  before,  and  it  doesn't  look  easy." 

"Easy!  You've  selected  the  very  most  difficult 
piece  of  railroad  in  Australia  for  your  experiment. 
There  are  twelve  miles  of  this  road  which  no  man 
without  good  executive  ability  can  ever  hope  —  tell 
me,  have  you  good  executive  ability  ?  —  first-rate  ex 
ecutive  ability?  " 

"I  — well,  I  think  so,  but—" 

"  That  settles  it.     The  tone  of — oh,  you  wouldn't 


Following  the  Equator  307 

ever  make  it  in  the  world.  However,  that  American 
will  point  you  right,  and  you'll  go.  You've  got 
tickets?" 

4  *  Yes  —  round  trip ;  all  the  way  to  Sydney. ' ' 

*'Ah,  there  it  is,  you  see!  You  are  going  in  the 
5  o'clock,  by  Castlemaine  —  twelve  miles  —  instead 
of  the  7.15  by  Ballarat  —  in  order  to  save  two  hours 
of  fooling  along  the  road.  Now  then,  don't  inter 
rupt —  let  me  have  the  floor.  You're  going  to  save 
the  Government  a  deal  of  hauling,  but  that's  nothing ; 
your  ticket  is  by  Ballarat,  and  it  isn't  good  over  that 
twelve  miles,  and  so  —  " 

"  But  why  should  the  Government  care  which  way 
I  go?" 

"  Goodness  knows !  Ask  of  the  winds  that  far 
away  with  fragments  strewed  the  sea,  as  the  boy  that 
stood  on  the  burning  deck  used  to  say.  The  Govern 
ment  chooses  to  do  its  railway  business  in  its  own 
way,  and  it  doesn't  know  as  much  about  it  as  the 
French.  In  the  beginning  they  tried  idiots;  then 
they  imported  the  French  —  which  was  going  back 
wards,  you  see;  now  it  runs  the  roads  itself  —  which 
is  going  backwards  again,  you  see.  Why,  do  you 
know,  in  order  to  curry  favor  with  the  voters,  the 
Government  puts  down  a  road  wherever  anybody 
wants  it  —  anybody  that  owns  two  sheep  and  a  dog; 
and  by  consequence  we've  got,  in  the  colony  of  Vic 
toria,  800  railway  stations,  and  the  business  done  at 
eighty  of  them  doesn't  foot  up  twenty  shillings  a 
week." 

T* 


308  Following  the  Equator 

4 '  Five  dollars  ?     Oh,  come  !  ' ' 
"  It's  true.     It's  the  absolute  truth." 
"Why,  there  are  three  or  four  men  on  wages  at 
every  station." 

"I  know  it.  And  the  station-business  doesn't 
pay  for  the  sheep-dip  to  sanctify  their  coffee  with. 
It's  just  as  I  say.  And  accommodating?  Why,  if 
you  shake  a  rag  the  train  will  stop  in  the  midst  of 
the  wilderness  to  pick  you  up.  All  that  kind  of 
politics  costs,  you  see.  And  then,  besides,  any 
town  that  has  a  good  many  votes  and  wants  a  fine 
station,  gets  it.  Don't  you  overlook  that  Mary 
borough  station,  if  you  take  an  interest  in  govern 
mental  curiosities.  Why,  you  can  put  the  whole 
population  of  Maryborough  into  it,  and  give  them  a 
sofa  apiece,  and  have  room  for  more.  You  haven't 
fifteen  stations  in  America  that  are  as  big,  and  you 
probably  haven't  five  that  are  half  as  fine.  Why, 
it's  per-fectly  elegant.  And  the  clock  !  Everybody 
will  show  you  the  clock.  There  isn't  a  station  in 
Europe  that's  got  such  a  clock.  It  doesn't  strike  — 
and  that's  one  mercy.  It  hasn't  any  bell;  and  as 
you'll  have  cause  to  remember,  if  you  keep  your 
reason,  all  Australia  is  simply  bedamned  with  bells. 
On  every  quarter-hour,  night  and  day,  they  jingle 
a  tiresome  chime  of  half  a  dozen  notes  —  all  the 
clocks  in  town  at  once,  all  the  clocks  in  Australasia 
at  once,  and  all  the  very  same  notes;  first,  down 
ward  scale  :  mi,  re,  do,  sol —  then  upward  scale  :  sol, 
si,  re,  do  —  down  again:  mi,  re,  do,  sol — up  again: 


Following  the  Equator  309 

sol,  si,  re,  do  —  then  the  clock  —  say  at  midnight : 
clang  —  clang  —  clang  —  clang  —  clang  —  clang  — 
clang  —  clang  —  clang  —  clang  —  clang  —  clang  ! 
—  and,  by  that  time  you're  —  hello,  what's  all  this 
excitement  about?  Oh,  I  see  —  a  runaway  —  scared 
by  the  train;  why,  you  wouldn't  think  this  train 
could  scare  anything.  Well,  of  course,  when  they 
build  and  run  eighty  stations  at  a  loss,  and  a  lot  of 
palace-stations  and  clocks  like  Maryborough's  at 
another  loss,  the  Government  has  got  to  economize 
somewhere,  hasn't  it?  Very  well  —  look  at  the  roll 
ing  stock !  That's  where  they  save  the  money. 
Why,  that  train  from  Maryborough  will  consist  of 
eighteen  freight  cars  and  two  passenger-kennels; 
cheap,  poor,  shabby,  slovenly;  no  drinking  water, 
no  sanitary  arrangements,  every  imaginable  incon 
venience  ;  and  slow? —  oh,  the  gait  of  cold  molasses ; 
no  air-brake,  no  springs,  and  they'll  jolt  your  head 
off  every  time  they  start  or  stop.  That's  where  they 
make  their  little  economies,  you  see.  They  spend 
tons  of  money  to  house  you  palatially  while  you  wait 
fifteen  minutes  for  a  train,  then  degrade  you  to  six 
hours'  convict-transportation  to  get  the  foolish  out 
lay  back.  What  a  rational  man  really  needs  is  dis 
comfort  while  he's  waiting,  then  his  journey  in  a  nice 
train  would  be  a  grateful  change.  But  no,  that 
would  be  common  sense  —  and  out  of  place 
in  a  government.  And  then,  besides,  they  save 
in  that  other  little  detail,  you  know — repudiate 
their  own  tickets,  and  collect  a  poor  little  ille- 


310  Following  the  Equator 

gitimate  extra  shilling  out  of  you  for  that  twelve 
miles,  and — " 

4 'Well,  in  any  case— " 

1 '  Wait  —  there' s  more.  Leave  that  American  out 
of  the  account  and  see  what  would  happen.  There's 
nobody  on  hand  to  examine  your  ticket  when  you 
arrive.  But  the  conductor  will  come  and  examine  it 
when  the  train  is  ready  to  start.  It  is  too  late  to  buy 
your  extra  ticket  now;  the  train  can't  wait,  and 
won't.  You  must  climb  out." 

"  But  can't  I  pay  the  conductor?  " 

"  No,  he  is  not  authorized  to  receive  the  money, 
and  he  won't.  You  must  climb  out.  There's  no 
other  way.  I  tell  you,  the  railway  management  is 
about  the  only  thoroughly  European  thing  here  — 
continentally  European  I  mean,  not  English.  It's 
the  continental  business  in  perfection;  down  fine. 
Oh,  yes,  even  to  the  peanut-commerce  of  weighing 
baggage." 

The  train  slowed  up  at  his  place.  As  he  stepped 
out  he  said : 

"Yes,  you'll  like  Maryborough.  Plenty  of  intel 
ligence  there.  It's  a  charming  place  —  with  a  hell 
of  a  hotel." 

Then  he  was  gone.  I  turned  to  the  other  gentle 
man: 

"  Is  your  friend  in  the  ministry?  " 

1 '  No  —  studying  for  it. ' ' 


CHAPTER   XXXII. 

The  man  with  a  new  idea  is  a  Crank  until  the  idea  succeeds. 

— Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

IT  was  Junior  England  all  the  way  to  Christchurch 
—  in  fact,  just  a  garden.  And  Christchurch  is 
an  English  town,  with  an  English-park  annex,  and  a 
winding  English  brook  just  like  the  Avon  —  and 
named  the  Avon;  but  from  a  man,  not  from  Shake 
speare's  river.  Its  grassy  banks  are  bordered  by  the 
stateliest  and  most  impressive  weeping  willows  to  be 
found  in  the  world,  I  'suppose.  They  continue  the 
line  of  a  great  ancestor;  they  were  grown  from 
sprouts  of  the  willow  that  sheltered  Napoleon's  grave 
in  St.  Helena.  It  is  a  settled  old  community,  with 
all  the  serenities,  the  graces,  the  conveniences,  and 
the  comforts  of  the  ideal  home-life.  If  it  had  an 
established  Church  and  social  inequality  it  would  be 
England  over  again  with  hardly  a  lack. 

In  the  museum  we  saw  many  curious  and  interest 
ing  things ;  among  others  a  fine  native  house  of  the 
olden  time,  with  all  the  details  true  to  the  facts,  and 
the  showy  colors  right  and  in  their  proper  places. 
All  the  details :  the  fine  mats  and  rugs  and  things ; 

(311) 


312  Following  the  Equator 

the  elaborate  and  wonderful  wood  carvings  —  wonder 
ful,  surely,  considering  who  did  them  —  wonderful 
in  design  and  particularly  in  execution,  for  they 
were  done  with  admirable  sharpness  and  exactness, 
and  yet  with  no  better  tools  than  flint  and  jade  and 
shell  could  furnish ;  and  the  totem-posts  were  there, 
ancestor  above  ancestor,  with  tongues  protruded  and 
hands  clasped  comfortably  over  bellies  containing 
other  people's  ancestors  —  grotesque  and  ugly  devils, 
everyone,  but  lovingly  carved,  and  ably;  and  the 
stuffed  natives  were  present,  in  their  proper  places, 
and  looking  as  natural  as  life ;  and  the  housekeeping 
utensils  were  there,  too,  and  close  at  hand  the  carved 
and  finely  ornamented  war-canoe. 

And  we  saw  little  jade  gods,  to  hang  around  the 
neck  —  not  everybody's,  but  sacred  to  the  necks  of 
natives  of  rank.  Also  jade  weapons,  and  many 
kinds  of  jade  trinkets  —  all  made  out  of  that  exces 
sively  hard  stone  without  the  help  of  any  tool  of  iron. 
And  some  of  these  things  had  small  round  holes 
bored  through  them  —  nobody  knows  how  it  was 
done;  a  mystery,  a  lost  art.  I  think  it  was  said 
that  if  you  want  such  a  hole  bored  in  a  piece  of 
jade  now,  you  must  send  it  to  London  or  Amsterdam 
where  the  lapidaries  are. 

Also  we  saw  a  complete  skeleton  of  the  giant  Moa. 
It  stood  ten  feet  high,  and  must  have  been  a  sight  to 
look  at  when  it  was  a  living  bird.  It  was  a  kicker, 
like  the  ostrich ;  in  fight  it  did  not  use  its  beak,  but 
its  foot.  It  must  have  been  a  convincing  kind  of 


Following  the  Equator  313 

kick.  If  a  person  had  his  back  to  the  bird  and  did 
not  see  who  it  was  that  did  it,  he  would  think  he  had 
been  kicked  by  a  wind-mill. 

There  must  have  been  a  sufficiency  of  moas  in  the 
old  forgotten  days  when  his  breed  walked  the  earth. 
His  bones  are  found  in  vast  masses,  all  crammed 
together  in  huge  graves.  They  are  not  in  caves, 
but  in  the  ground.  Nobody  knows  how  they  hap 
pened  to  get  concentrated  there.  Mind,  they  are 
bones,  not  fossils.  This  means  that  the  moa  has  not 
been  extinct  very  long.  Still,  this  is  the  only  New 
Zealand  creature  which  has  no  mention  in  that  other 
wise  comprehensive  literature,  the  native  legends. 
This  is  a  significant  detail,  and  is  good  circum 
stantial  evidence  that  the  moa  has  been  extinct  500 
years,  since  the  Maori  has  himself -  —  by  tradition  — 
been  in  New  Zealand  since  the  end  of  the  fifteenth 
century.  He  came  from  an  unknown  land  —  the  first 
Maori  did  —  then  sailed  back  in  a  canoe  and  brought: 
his  tribe,  and  they  removed  the  aboriginal  peoples  into 
the  sea  and  into  the  ground  and  took  the  land.  That 
is  the  tradition.  That  that  first  Maori  could  come  is 
understandable,  for  anybody  can  come  to  a  place 
when  he  isn't  trying  to;  but  how  that  discoverer 
found  his  way  back  home  again  without  a  compass 
is  his  secret,  and  he  died  with  it  in  him.  His 
language  indicates  that  he  came  from  Polynesia. 
He  told  where  he  came  from,  but  he  couldn't  spell 
well,  so  one  can't  find  the  place  on  the  map,  be 
cause  people  who  could  spell  better  than  he  could 


314  Following  the  Equator 

spelt  the  resemblance  all  out  of  it  when  they  made 
the  map.  However,  it  is  better  to  have  a  map  that 
is  spelt  right  than  one  that  has  information  in  it. 

In  New  Zealand  women  have  the  right  to  vote  for 
members  of  the  legislature,  but  they  cannot  be  mem 
bers  themselves.  The  law  extending  the  suffrage  to 
them  went  into  effect  in  1893.  The  population  of 
Christchurch  (census  of  1891)  was  31,454.  The 
first  election  under  the  law  was  held  in  November  of 
that  year.  Number  of  men  who  voted,  6,313; 
number  of  women  who  voted,  5,989.  These  figures 
ought  to  convince  us  that  women  are  not  as  indiffer 
ent  about  politics  as  some  people  would  have  us  be 
lieve.  In  New  Zealand  as  a  whole,  the  estimated 
adult  female  population  was  139,915;  of  those 
109,461  qualified  and  registered  their  names  on  the 
rolls  —  78.23  per  cent,  of  the  whole.  Of  these, 
90,290  went  to  the  polls  and  voted — 85.18  per 
cent.  Do  men  ever  turn  out  better  than  that  —  in 
America  or  elsewhere?  Here  is  a  remark  to  the 
other  sex's  credit,  too  —  I  take  it  from  the  official 
report : 

"A  feature  of  the  election  was  the  orderliness  and 
sobriety  of  the  people.  Women  were  in  no  way 
molested." 

At  home,  a  standing  argument  against  woman 
suffrage  has  always  been  that  women  could  not  go  to 
the  polls  without  being  insulted.  The  arguments 
against  woman  suffrage  have  always  taken  the  easy 
form  of  prophecy.  The  prophets  have  been 


Following  the  Equator  315 

prophesying  ever  since  the  woman's  rights  movement 
began  in  1848  —  and  in  forty-seven  years  they  have 
never  scored  a  hit. 

Men  ought  to  begin  to  feel  a  sort  of  respect  for 
their  mothers  and  wives  and  sisters  by  this  time. 
The  women  deserve  a  change  of  attitude  like  that, 
for  they  have  wrought  well.  In  forty-seven  years 
they  have  swept  an  imposingly  large  number  of 
unfair  laws  from  the  statute  books  of  America.  In 
that  brief  time  these  serfs  have  set  themselves  free 
—  essentially.  Men  could  not  have  done  so  much 
for  themselves  in  that  time  without  bloodshed  —  at 
least  they  never  have ;  and  that  is  argument  that 
they  didn't  know  how.  The  women  have  accom 
plished  a  peaceful  revolution,  and  a  very  beneficent 
one;  and  yet  that  has  not  convinced  the  average 
man  that  they  are  intelligent,  and  have  courage  and 
energy  and  perseverance  and  fortitude.  It  takes 
much  to  convince  the  average  man  of  anything ;  and 
perhaps  nothing  can  ever  make  him  realize  that  he 
is  the  average  woman's  inferior  —  yet  in  several  im 
portant  details  the  evidence  seems  to  show  that  that  is 
what  he  is.  Man  has  ruled  the  human  race  from  the 
beginning  —  but  he  should  remember  that  up  to  the 
middle  of  the  present  century  it  was  a  dull  world, 
and  ignorant  and  stupid ;  but  it  is  not  such  a  dull 
world  now,  and  is  growing  less  and  less  dull  all  the 
time.  This  is  woman's  opportunity  —  she  has  had 
none  before.  I  wonder  where  man  will  be  in  another 
forty-seven  years? 


316  Following  the  Equator 

In  the  New  Zealand  law  occurs  this:  "  The  word 
person  wherever  it  occurs  throughout  the  Act  in 
cludes  woman." 

That  is  promotion,  you  see.  By  that  enlarge 
ment  of  the  word,  the  matron  with  the  garnered 
wisdom  and  experience  of  fifty  years  becomes  at  one 
jump  the  political  equal  of  her  callow  kid  of  twenty- 
one.  The  white  population  of  the  colony  is  626,000, 
the  Maori  population  is  42,000.  The  whites  elect 
seventy  members  of  the  House  of  Representatives, 
the  Maoris  four.  The  Maori  women  vote  for  their 
four  members. 

November  16.  After  four  pleasant  days  in  Christ- 
church,  we  are  to  leave  at  midnight  to-night.  Mr. 
Kinsey  gave  me  an  ornithorhyncus,  and  I  am  tam 
ing  it. 

Sunday,  ij.  Sailed  last  night  in  the  Flora, 
from  Lyttelton. 

So  we  did.  I  remember  it  yet.  The  people  who 
sailed  in  the  Flora  that  night  may  forget  some  other 
things  if  they  live  a  good  while,  but  they  will  not  live 
long  enough  to  forget  that.  The  Flora  is  about  the 
equivalent  of  a  cattle-scow;  but  when  the  Union 
Company  find  it  inconvenient  to  keep  a  contract  and 
lucrative  to  break  it,  they  smuggle  her  into  passenger 
service,  and  "  keep  the  change." 

They  give  no  notice  of  their  projected  depredation; 
you  innocently  buy  tickets  for  the  advertised  passen 
ger-boat,  and  when  you  get  down  to  Lyttelton  at 
midnight,  you  find  that  they  have  substituted  the 


Following  the  Equator  317 

scow.  They  have  plenty  of  good  boats,  but  no  com 
petition  —  and  that  is  the  trouble.  It  is  too  late  now 
to  make  other  arrangements  if  you  have  engage 
ments  ahead. 

It  is  a  powerful  company,  it  has  a  monopoly,  and 
everybody  is  afraid  of  it  —  including  the  govern 
ment's  representative,  who  stands  at  the  end  of  the 
stage-plank  to  tally  the  passengers  and  see  that  no 
boat  receives  a  greater  number  than  the  law  allows 
her  to  carry.  This  conveniently-blind  representative 
saw  the  scow  receive  a  number  which  was  far  in 
excess  of  its  privilege,  and  winked  a  politic  wink  and 
said  nothing.  The  passengers  bore  with  meekness 
the  cheat  which  had  been  put  upon  them,  and  made 
no  complaint. 

It  was  like  being  at  home  in  America,  where 
abused  passengers  act  in  just  the  same  way.  A  few 
days  before,  the  Union  Company  had  discharged  a 
captain  for  getting  a  boat  into  danger,  and  had 
advertised  this  act  as  evidence  of  its  vigilance  in 
looking  after  the  safety  of  the  passengers  —  for  thug- 
ging  a  captain  costs  a  company  nothing;  but  when 
opportunity  offered  to  send  this  dangerously  over 
crowded  tub  to  sea  and  save  a  little  trouble  and  a  tidy 
penny  by  it,  it  forgot  to  worry  about  the  passen 
gers'  safety. 

The  first  officer  told  me  that  the  Flora  was 
privileged  to  carry  125  passengers.  She  must  have 
had  all  of  200  on  board.  All  the  cabins  were  full, 
all  the  cattle-stalls  in  the  main  stable  were  full,  the 


318  Following  the  Equator 

spaces  at  the  heads  of  companionways  were  full, 
every  inch  of  floor  and  table  in  the  swill-room  was 
packed  with  sleeping  men  and  remained  so  until  the 
place  was  required  for  breakfast,  all  the  chairs  and 
benches  on  the  hurricane  deck  were  occupied,  and  still 
there  were  people  who  had  to  walk  about  all  night ! 

If  the  Flora  had  gone  down  that  night,  half  of  the 
people  on  board  would  have  been  wholly  without 
means  of  escape. 

The  owners  of  that  boat  were  not  technically  guilty 
of  conspiracy  to  commit  murder,  but  they  were 
morally  guilty  of  it. 

I  had  a  cattle-stall  in  the  main  stable  —  a  cavern 
fitted  up  with  a  long  double  file  of  two-storied  bunks, 
the  files  separated  by  a  calico  partition  —  twenty  men 
and  boys  on  one  side  of  it,  twenty  women  and  girls 
on  the  other.  The  place  was  as  dark  as  the  soul  of 
the  Union  Company,  and  smelt  like  a  kennel.  When 
the  vessel  got  out  into  the  heavy  seas  and  began  to 
pitch  and  wallow,  the  cavern  prisoners  became  im 
mediately  seasick,  and  then  the  peculiar  results  that 
ensued  laid  all  my  previous  experiences  of  the  kind 
well  away  in  the  shade.  And  the  wails,  the  groans, 
the  cries,  the  shrieks,  the  strange  ejaculations  —  it 
was  wonderful. 

The  women  and  children  and  some  of  the  men  and 
boys  spent  the  night  in  that  place,  for  they  were  too 
ill  to  leave  it;  but  the  rest  of  us  got  up,  by  and  by, 
and  finished  the  night  on  the  hurricane  deck. 

That  boat  was  the  foulest  I  was  ever  in ;   and  the 


Following  the  Equator  319 

smell  of  the  breakfast  saloon  when  we  threaded  our 
way  among  the  layers  of  steaming  passengers 
stretched  upon  its  floor  and  its  tables  was  incom 
parable  for  efficiency. 

A  good  many  of  us  got  ashore  at  the  first  way-port 
to  seek  another  ship.  After  a  wait  of  three  hours 
we  got  good  rooms  in  the  Mahinapua,  a  wee  little 
bridal-parlor  of  a  boat  —  only  205  tons  burthen; 
clean  and  comfortable;  good  service;  good  beds; 
good  table,  and  no  crowding.  The  seas  danced  her 
about  like  a  duck,  but  she  was  safe  and  capable. 

Next  morning  early  she  went  through  the  French 
Pass  —  a  narrow  gateway  of  rock,  between  bold  head 
lands —  so  narrow,  in  fact,  that  it  seemed  no  wider 
than  a  street.  The  current  tore  through  there  like 
a  mill-race,  and  the  boat  darted  through  like  a  tele 
gram.  The  passage  was  made  in  half  a  minute; 
then  we  were  in  a  wide  place  where  noble  vast  eddies 
swept  grandly  round  and  round  in  shoal  water,  and 
I  wondered  what  they  would  do  with  the  little  boat. 
They  did  as  they  pleased  with  her.  They  picked 
her  up  and  flung  her  around  like  nothing  and  landed 
her  gently  on  the  solid,  smooth  bottom  of  sand  —  so 
gently,  indeed,  that  we  barely  felt  her  touch  it,  barely 
felt  her  quiver  when  she  came  to  a  standstill.  The 
water  was  as  clear  as  glass,  the  sand  on  the  bottom 
was  vividly  distinct,  and  the  fishes  seemed  to  be 
swimming  about  in  nothing.  Fishing  lines  were 
brought  out,  but  before  we  could  bait  the  hooks  the 
boat  was  off  and  away  again. 


CHAPTER   XXXIII. 

Let  us  be  grateful  to  Adam  our  benefactor.    He  cut  us  out  of  the  "bless 
ing  "  of  idleness  and  won  for  us  the  "  curse  "  of  labor. 

— Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar, 

WE  soon  reached  the  town  of  Nelson,  and  spent 
the  most  of  the  day  there,  visiting  acquaint 
ances  and  driving  with  them  about  the  garden  —  the 
whole  region  is  a  garden,  excepting  the  scene  of  the 
"  Maungatapu  Murders,"  of  thirty  years  ago.  That 
is  a  wild  place  —  wild  and  lonely;  an  ideal  place  for 
a  murder.  It  is  at  the  base  of  a  vast,  rugged, 
densely  timbered  mountain.  In  the  deep  twilight  of 
that  forest  solitude  four  desperate  rascals  —  Burgess, 
Sullivan,  Levy,  and  Kelley  —  ambushed  themselves 
beside  the  mountain  trail  to  murder  and  rob  four 
travelers  —  Kempthorne,  Mathieu,  Dudley,  and  De 
Pontius,  the  latter  a  New  Yorker.  A  harmless  old 
laboring  man  came  wandering  along,  and,  as  his 
presence  was  an  embarrassment,  they  choked  him,  hid 
him,  and  then  resumed  their  watch  for  the  four. 
They  had  to  wait  a  while,  but  eventually  everything 
turned  out  as  they  desired. 

That  dark   episode   is   the   one  large  event  in  the 
history  of  Nelson.     The  fame   of    it  traveled    far. 

(320) 


Following  the  Equator  321 

Burgess  made  a  confession.  It  is  a  remarkable 
paper.  For  brevity,  succinctness,  and  concentra 
tion,  it  is  perhaps  without  its  peer  in  the  literature  of 
murder.  There  are  no  waste  words  in  it ;  there  is  no 
obtrusion  of  matter  not  pertinent  to  the  occasion, 
nor  any  departure  from  the  dispassionate  tone  proper 
to  a  formal  business  statement  —  for  that  is  what  it 
is :  a  business  statement  of  a  murder,  by  the  chief 
engineer  of  it,  or  superintendent,  or  foreman,  or 
whatever  one  may  prefer  to  call  him. 

"  We  were  getting  impatient,  when  we  saw  four  men  and  a  pack- 
horse  coming.  I  left  my  cover  and  had  a  look  at  the  men,  for  Levy  had 
told  me  that  Mathieu  was  a  small  man  and  wore  a  large  beard,  and  that 
it  was  a  chestnut  horse.  I  said,  *  Here  they  come.'  They  were  then  a 
good  distance  away;  I  took  the  caps  off  my  gun,  and  put  fresh  ones  on. 
I  said,  '  You  keep  where  you  are,  I'll  put  them  up,  and  you  give  me 
your  gun  while  you  tie  them.'  It  was  arranged  as  I  have  described. 
The  men  came;  they  arrived  within  about  fifteen  yards,  when  I  stepped 
up  and  said,  *  Stand !  bail  up  !  "  That  means  all  of  them  to  get  to 
gether.  I  made  them  fall  back  on  the  upper  side  of  the  road  with  their 
faces  up  the  range,  and  Sullivan  brought  me  his  gun,  and  then  tied  their 
hands  behind  them.  The  horse  was  very  quiet  all  the  time,  he  did  not 
move.  When  they  were  all  tied,  Sullivan  took  the  horse  up  the  hill, 
and  put  him  in  the  bush;  he  cut  the  rope  and  let  the  swags*  fall  on  the 
ground,  and  then  came  to  me.  We  then  marched  the  men  down  the 
incline  to  the  creek;  the  water  at  this  time  barely  running.  Up  this 
creek  we  took  the  men;  we  went,  I  daresay,  five  or  six  hundred  yards 
up  it,  which  took  us  nearly  half  an  hour  to  accomplish.  Then  we  turned 
to  'the  right  up  the  range;  we  went,  I  daresay,  one  hundred  and  fifty 
yards  from  the  creek,  and  there  we  sat  down  with  the  men.  I  said  to 
Sullivan,  '  Put  down  your  gun  and  search  these  men,'  which  he  did.  I 
asked  them  their  several  names;  they  told  me.  I  asked  them  if  they 
were  expected  at  Nelson.  They  said,  'No.'  If  such  their  lives  would 
have  been  spared.  In  money  we  took  £60  odd.  I  said,  'Is  this  all  you 

*  A  "  swag  "  is  a  kit,  a  pack,  small  baggage. 
21* 


322  Following  the  Equator 

have?  You  had  better  tell  me.'  Sullivan  said,  '  Here  is  a  bag  of  gold.1 
I  said,  '  What's  on  that  pack-horse?  Is  there  any  gold?  '  when  Kemp- 
thorne  said,  '  Yes,  my  gold  is  in  the  portmanteau,  and  I  trust  you  will 
not  take  it  all.'  '  Well,'  I  said,  '  we  must  take  you  away  one  at  a  time, 
because  the  range  is  steep  just  here,  and  then  we  will  let  you  go.'  They 
said,  'All  right,'  most  cheerfully.  We  tied  their  feet,  and  took  Dudley 
with  us;  we  went  about  sixty  yards  with  him.  This  was  through  a 
scrub.  It  was  arranged  the  night  previously  that  it  would  be  best  to 
choke  them,  in  case  the  report  of  the  arms  might  be  heard  from  the 
road,  and  if  they  were  missed  they  never  would  be  found.  So  we  tied 
a  handkerchief  over  his  eyes,  when  Sullivan  took  the  sash  off  his  waist, 
put  it  round  his  neck,  and  so  strangled  him.  Sullivan,  after  I  had  killed 
the  old  laboring  man,  found  fault  with  the  way  he  was  choked.  He  said, 
'The  next  we  do  I'll  show  you  my  way.'  I  said,  '  I  have  never  done 
such  a  thing  before.  I  have  shot  a  man,  but  never  choked  one.'  We 
returned  to  the  others,  when  Kempthorne  said,  '  What  noise  was  that  ?  ' 
I  said  it  was  caused  by  breaking  through  the  scrub.  This  was  taking 
too  much  time,  so  it  was  agreed  to  shoot  them.  With  that  I  said, 
'  We'll  take  you  no  further,  but  separate  you,  and  then  loose  one  of  you, 
and  he  can  relieve  the  others.'  So  with  that,  Sullivan  took  De  Pontius 
to  the  left  of  where  Kempthorne  was  sitting.  I  took  Mathieu  to  the  right. 
I  tied  a  strap  round  his  legs,  and  shot  him  with  a  revolver.  He  yelled, 
I  ran  from  him  with  my  gun  in  my  hand,  I  sighted  Kempthorne,  who 
had  risen  to  his  feet.  I  presented  the  gun,  and  shot  him  behind  the 
right  ear;  his  life's  blood  welled  from  him,  and  he  died  instantaneously. 
Sullivan  had  shot  De  Pontius  in  the  meantime,  and  then  came  to  me.  I 
said,  '  Look  to  Mathieu,'  indicating  the  spot  where  he  lay.  He  shortly 
returned  and  said,  'I  had  to  "chiv"  that  fellow,  he  was  not  dead,'  a 
cant  word,  meaning  that  he  had  to  stab  him.  Returning  to  the  road 
we  passed  where  De  Pontius  lay  and  was  dead.  Sullivan  said,  '  This  is 
the  digger,  the  others  were  all  storekeepers;  this  is  the  digger,  let's  cover 
him  up,  for  should  the  others  be  found,  they'll  think  he  done  it  and 
sloped,'  meaning  he  had  gone.  So  with  that  we  threw  all  the  stones 
on  him,  and  then  left  him.  This  bloody  work  took  nearly  an  hour  and 
a  half  from  the  time  we  stopped  the  men." 

Any  one  who  reads  that  confession  will  think  that 
the  man  who  wrote  it  was  destitute  of  emotions, 
destitute  of  feeling.  That  is  partly  true.  As 


Following  the  Equator  323 

regarded  others  he  was  plainly  without  feeling  — 
utterly  cold  and  pitiless ;  but  as  regarded  himself  the 
case  was  different.  While  he  cared  nothing  for  the 
future  of  the  murdered  men,  he  cared  a  great  deal 
for  his  own.  It  makes  one's  flesh  creep  to  read  the 
introduction  to  his  confession.  The  judge  on  the 
bench  characterized  it  as  "  scandalously  blasphe 
mous,"  and  it  certainly  reads  so,  but  Burgess  meant 
no  blasphemy.  He  was  merely  a  brute,  and  what 
ever  he  said  or  wrote  was  sure  to  expose  the  fact. 
His  redemption  was  a  very  real  thing  to  him,  and 
he  was  as  jubilantly  happy  on  the  gallows  as  ever 
was  Christian  martyr  at  the  stake.  We  dwellers  in 
this  world  are  strangely  made,  and  mysteriously 
circumstanced.  We  have  to  suppose  that  the 
murdered  men  are  lost,  and  that  Burgess  is  saved ; 
but  we  cannot  suppress  our  natural  regrets : 

"  Written  in  my  dungeon  drear  this  7th  of  August,  in  the  year  of 
Grace,  1866.  To  God  be  ascribed  all  power  and  glory  in  subduing  the 
rebellious  spirit  of  a  most  guilty  wretch,  who  has  been  brought,  through 
the  instrumentality  of  a  faithful  follower  of  Christ,  to  see  his  wretched 
and  guilty  state,  inasmuch  as  hitherto  he  has  led  an  awful  and  wretched 
life,  and  through  the  assurance  of  this  faithful  soldier  of  Christ,  he  has 
been  led  and  also  believes  that  Christ  will  yet  receive  and  cleanse  him 
from  all  his  deep-dyed  and  bloody  sins.  I  lie  under  the  imputation 
which  says, '  Come  now  and  let  us  reason  together,  saith  the  Lord; 
though  your  sins  be  as  scarlet,  they  shall  be  as  white  as  snow;  though 
they  be  red  like  crimson,  they  shall  be  as  wool.'  On  this  promise  I  rely.' ' 

We  sailed  in  the  afternoon  late,  spent  a  few  hours 
at    New  Plymouth,  then   sailed  again   and   reached 
Auckland   the   next  day,  November  2Oth,   and   re 
mained  in  that  fine  city  several  days.     Its  situation 
u* 


324  Following  the  Equator 

is  commanding,  and  the  sea  view  is  superb.  There 
are  charming  drives  all  about,  and  by  courtesy  of 
friends  we  had  opportunity  to  enjoy  them.  From 
the  grassy  crater-summit  of  Mount  Eden  one's  eye 
ranges  over  a  grand  sweep  and  variety  of  scenery 
—  forests  clothed  in  luxuriant  foliage,  rolling  green 
fields,  conflagrations  of  flowers,  receding  and  dim 
ming  stretches  of  green  plain,  broken  by  lofty  and 
symmetrical  old  craters  —  then  the  blue  bays  twink 
ling  and  sparkling  away  into  the  dreamy  distances 
where  the  mountains  loom  spiritual  in  their  veils 
of  haze. 

It  is  from  Auckland  that  one  goes  to  Rotorua,  the 
region  of  the  renowned  hot  lakes  and  geysers  —  one 
of  the  chief  wonders  of  New  Zealand ;  but  I  was  not 
well  enough  to  make  the  trip.  The  Government  has 
a  sanitarium  there,  and  everything  is  comfortable 
for  the  tourist  and  the  invalid.  The  Government's 
official  physician  is  almost  over-cautious  in  his 
estimates  of  the  efficacy  of  the  baths,  when  he  is 
talking  about  rheumatism,  gout,  paralysis,  and  such 
things ;  but  when  he  is  talking  about  the  effective 
ness  of  the  waters  in  eradicating  the  whisky-habit,  he 
seems  to  have  no  reserves.  The  baths  will  cure  the 
drinking-habit  no  matter  how  chronic  it  is  —  and 
cure  it  so  effectually  that  even  the  desire  to  drink 
intoxicants  will  come  no  more.  There  should  be  a 
rush  from  Europe  and  America  to  that  place ;  and 
when  the  victims  of  alcoholism  find  out  what  they 
can  get  by  going  there,  the  rush  will  begin. 


Following  the  Equator  325 

The  Thermal-springs  District  of  New  Zealand 
comprises  an  area  of  upward  of  600,000  acres,  or 
close  on  1 ,000  square  miles.  Rotorua  is  the  favorite 
place.  It  is  the  center  of  a  rich  field  of  lake  and 
mountain  scenery;  from  Rotorua  as  a  base  the 
pleasure-seeker  makes  excursions.  The  crowd  of 
sick-  people  is  great,  and  growing.  Rotorua  is  the 
Carlsbad  of  Australasia. 

It  is  from  Auckland  that  the  Kauri  gum  is 
shipped.  For  a  long  time  now  about  8,000  tons  of 
it  have  been  brought  into  the  town  per  year.  It  is 
worth  about  $300  per  ton,  unassorted;  assorted, 
the  finest  grades  are  worth  about  $1,000.  It  goes 
to  America,  chiefly.  It  is  in  lumps,  and  is  hard 
and  smooth,  and  looks  like  amber  —  the  light  col 
ored  like  new  amber,  and  the  dark  brown  like  rich 
old  amber.  And  it  has  the  pleasant  feel  of  amber, 
too.  Some  of  the  light-colored  samples  were  a  tol 
erably  fair  counterfeit  of  uncut  South  African  dia 
monds,  they  were  so  perfectly  smooth  and  polished 
and  transparent.  It  is  manufactured  into  varnish; 
a  varnish  which  answers  for  copal  varnish  and  is 
cheaper. 

The  gum  is  dug  up  out  of  the  ground;  it  has 
been  there  for  ages.  It  is  the  sap  of  the  Kauri 
tree.  Dr.  Campbell  of  Auckland  told  me  he  sent  a 
cargo  of  it  to  England  fifty  years  ago,  but  nothing 
came  of  the  venture.  Nobody  knew  what  to  do 
with  it;  so  it  was  sold  at  ^5  a  ton,  to  light  fires 
with. 


326  Following  the  Equator 

November  26  —  3  P.  M.,  sailed.  Vast  and  beauti 
ful  harbor.  Land  all  about  for  hours.  Tangariwa, 
the  mountain  that  ' '  has  the  same  shape  from  every 
point  of  view."  That  is  the  common  belief  in 
Auckland.  And  so  it  has  —  from  every  point  of 
view  except  thirteen.  .  .  .  Perfect  summer 
weather.  Large  school  of  whales  in  the  distance. 
Nothing  could  be  daintier  than  the  puffs  of  vapor 
they  spout  up,  when  seen  against  the  pink  glory  of 
the  sinking  sun,  or  against  the  dark  mass  of  an  island 
reposing  in  the  deep  blue  shadow  of  a  storm-cloud. 
Great  Barrier  rock  standing  up  out  of  the 
sea  away  to  the  left.  Some  time  ago  a  ship  hit  it 
full  speed  in  a  fog — 20  miles  out  of  her  course  — 
140  lives  lost;  the  captain  committed  suicide  with 
out  waiting  a  moment.  He  knew  that,  whether  he 
was  to  blame  or  not,  the  company  owning  the 
vessel  would  discharge  him  and  make  a  devotion-to- 
passengers'-safety  advertisement  out  of  it,  and  his 
chance  to  make  a  livelihood  would  be  permanently 
gone. 


CHAPTER   XXXIV. 

Let  us  not  be  too  particular.      It  is  better  to  have  old  second-hand  dia« 
monds  than  none  at  all. —  Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

NOVEMBER  27.     To-day  we  reached  Gisborne, 
and  anchored  in  a  big  bay ;  there  was  a  heavy 
sea  on,  so  we  remained  on  board. 

We  were  a  mile  from  shore;  a  little  steam-tug 
put  out  from  the  land ;  she  was  an  object  of  thrill 
ing  interest;  she  would  climb  to  the  summit  of  a 
billow,  reel  drunkenly  there  a  moment,  dim  and 
gray  in  the  driving  storm  of  spindrift,  then  make 
a  plunge  like  a  diver,  and  remain  out  of  sight  until 
one  had  given  her  up,  then  up  she  would  dart  again, 
on  a  steep  slant  toward  the  sky,  shedding  Niagaras 
of  water  from  her  forecastle  —  and  this  she  kept  up, 
all  the  way  out  to  us.  She  brought  twenty-five 
passengers  in  her  stomach  —  men  and  women  — 
mainly  a  traveling  dramatic  company.  In  sight  on 
deck  were  the  crew,  in  sou 'westers,  yellow  water 
proof  canvas  suits,  and  boots  to  the  thigh.  The 
deck  was  never  quiet  for  a  moment,  and  seldom 
nearer  level  than  a  ladder,  and  noble  were  the  sea? 
which  leapt  aboard  and  went  flooding  aft.  We 

(327) 


328  Following  the  Equator 

rove  a  long  line  to  the  yard-arm,  hung  a  most 
primitive  basket-chair  to  it,  and  swung  it  out  into 
the  spacious  air  of  heaven,  and  there  it  swayed, 
pendulum-fashion,  waiting  for  its  chance  —  then 
down  it  shot,  skillfully  aimed,  and  was  grabbed  by 
the  two  men  on  the  forecastle.  A  young  fellow 
belonging  to  our  crew  was  in  the  chair,  to  be  a  pro 
tection  to  the  lady-comers.  At  once  a  couple  of 
ladies  appeared  from  below,  took  seats  in  his  lap, 
we  hoisted  them  into  the  sky,  waited  a  moment  till  the 
roll  of  the  ship  brought  them  in,  overhead,  then  we 
lowered  suddenly  away,  and  seized  the  chair  as  it 
struck  the  deck.  We  took  the  twenty-five  aboard, 
and  delivered  twenty-five  into  the  tug  —  among  them 
several  aged  ladies,  and  one  blind  one  —  and  all 
without  accident.  It  was  a  fine  piece  of  work. 

Ours  is  a  nice  ship,  roomy,  comfortable,  well- 
ordered,  and  satisfactory.  Now  and  then  we  step 
on  a  rat  in  a  hotel,  but  we  have  had  no  rats  on 
shipboard  lately;  unless,  perhaps,  in  the  Flora ;  we 
had  more  serious  things  to  think  of  there,  and  did 
not  notice.  I  have  noticed  that  it  is  only  in  ships 
and  hotels  which  still  employ  the  odious  Chinese 
gong,  that  you  find  rats,  The  reason  would  seem 
to  be,  that  as  a  rat  cannot  tell  the  time  of  day  by  a 
clock,  he  won't  stay  where  he  cannot  find  out  when 
dinner  is  ready. 

November  29.  The  doctor  tells  me  of  several  old 
drunkards,  one  spiritless  loafer,  and  several  far-gone 
moral  wrecks  who  have  been  reclaimed  by  the  Sal- 


Following  the  Equator  329 

vation  Army  and  have  remained  staunch  people  and 
hard  workers  these  two  years.  Wherever  one  goes, 
these  testimonials  to  the  Army's  efficiency  are  forth 
coming.  .  .  .  This  morning  we  had  one  of 
those  whizzing  green  Ballarat  flies  in  the  room,  with 
his  stunning  buzz-saw  noise  —  the  swiftest  creature 
in  the  world  except  the  lightning-flash.  It  is  a 
stupendous  force  that  is  stored  up  in  that  little 
body.  If  we  had  it  in  a  ship  in  the  same  propor 
tion,  we  could  spin  from  Liverpool  to  New  York  in 
the  space  of  an  hour  —  the  time  it  takes  to  eat 
luncheon.  The  New  Zealand  express  train  is  called 
the  Ballarat  Fly.  .  .  .  Bad  teeth  in  the  colonies. 
A  citizen  told  me  they  don't  have  teeth  filled,  but 
pull  them  out  and  put  in,  false  ones,  and  that  now 
and  then  one  sees  a  young  lady  with  a  full  set.  She 
is  fortunate.  I  wish  I  had  been  born  with  false 
teeth  and  a  false  liver  and  false  carbuncles.  I 
should  get  along  better. 

December  2.  Monday.  Left  Napier  in  the  Bal 
larat  Fly  —  the  one  that  goes  twice  a  week.  From 
Napier  to  Hastings,  twelve  miles;  time,  fifty-five 
minutes  —  not  so  far  short  of  thirteen  miles  an 
hour.  .  .  .  A  perfect  summer  day ;  cool  breeze, 
brilliant  sky,  rich  vegetation.  Two  or  three  times 
during  the  afternoon  we  saw  wonderfully  dense  and 
beautiful  forests,  tumultuously  piled  skyward  on  the 
broken  highlands  —  not  the  customary  roof-like  slant 
of  a  hillside,  where  the  trees  are  all  the  same  height. 
The  noblest  of  these  trees  were  of  the  Kauri  breed, 


330  Following  the  Equator 

we  were  told  —  the  timber  that  is  now  furnishing  the 
wood-paving  for  Europe,  and  is  the  best  of  all  wood 
for  that  purpose.  Sometimes  these  towering  up 
heavals  of  forestry  were  festooned  and  garlanded 
with  vine-cables,  and  sometimes  the  masses  of 
undergrowth  were  cocooned  in  another  sort  of  vine 
of  a  delicate  cobwebby  texture  —  they  call  it  the 
"  supple-jack,"  I  think.  Tree  ferns  everywhere  — 
a  stem  fifteen  feet  high,  with  a  graceful  chalice  of 
fern-fronds  sprouting  from  its  top  —  a  lovely  forest 
ornament.  And  there  was  a  ten-foot  reed  with  a 
flowing  suit  of  what  looked  like  yellow  hair  hanging 
from  its  upper  end.  I  do  not  know  its  name,  but  if 
there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  scalp-plant,  this  is  it.  A 
romantic  gorge,  with  a  brook  flowing  in  its  bottom, 
approaching  Palmerston  North. 

Waitukurau.  Twenty  minutes  for  luncheon. 
With  me  sat  my  wife  and  daughter,  and  my 
manager,  Mr.  Carlyle  Smythe.  I  sat  at  the  head 
of  the  table,  and  could  see  the  right-hand  wall ;  the 
others  had  their  backs  to  it.  On  that  wall,  at  a 
good  distance  away,  were  a  couple  of  framed  pic 
tures.  I  could  not  see  them  clearly,  but  from  the 
groupings  of  the  figures  I  fancied  that  they  repre 
sented  the  killing  of  Napoleon  III.'s  son  by  the 
Zulus  in  South  Africa.  I  broke  into  the  conversa 
tion,  which  was  about  poetry  and  cabbage  and  art, 
and  said  to  my  wife : 

"Do  you  remember  when  the  news  came  to 
Paris—'' 


Following  the  Equator  331 

44  Of  the  killing  of  the  Prince?" 

(Those  were  the  very  words  I  had  in  my  mind.) 

44  Yes,  but  what  Prince?" 

"Napoleon.     Lulu." 

44  What  made  you  think  of  that?" 

44 1  don't  know." 

There  was  no  collusion.  She  had  not  seen  the 
pictures,  and  they  had  not  been  mentioned.  She 
ought  to  have  thought  of  some  recent  news  that 
came  to  Paris,  for  we  were  but  seven  months  from 
there  and  had  been  living  there  a  couple  of  years 
when  we  started  on  this  trip ;  but  instead  of  that 
she  thought  of  an  incident  of  our  brief  sojourn  in 
Paris  of  sixteen  years  before. 

Here  was  a  clear  case  of  mental  telegraphy;  of 
mind-transference ;  of  my  mind  telegraphing  a  thought 
into  hers.  How  do  I  know?  Because  I  telegraphed 
an  error.  For  it  turned  out  that  the  pictures  did 
not  represent  the  killing  of  Lulu  at  all,  nor  anything 
connected  with  Lulu.  She  had  to  get  the  error 
from  my  head  —  it  existed  nowhere  else. 


CHAPTER   XXXV. 

The  Autocrat  of  Russia  possesses  more  power  than  any  other  man  in  the 
earth  ;  but  he  cannot  stop  a  sneeze.  —  Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

WAUGANUI,  December 3.  A  pleasant  trip,  yes 
terday,  per  Ballarat  Fly.  Four  hours.  I  do 
not  know  the  distance,  but  it  must  have  been  well 
along  toward  fifty  miles.  The  Fly  could  have  spun 
it  out  to  eight  hours  and  not  discommoded  me ;  for 
where  there  is  comfort,  and  no  need  for  hurry,  speed 
is  of  no  value  —  at  least  to  me ;  and  nothing  that 
goes  on  wheels  can  be  more  comfortable,  more 
satisfactory,  than  the  New  Zealand  trains.  Outside 
of  America  there  are  no  cars  that  are  so  rationally 
devised.  When  you  add  the  constant  presence  of 
charming  scenery  and  the  nearly  constant  absence 
of  dust  —  well,  if  one  is  not  content  then,  he  ought 
to  get  out  and  walk.  That  would  change  his  spirit, 
perhaps;  1  think  so.  At  the  end  of  an  hour  you 
would  find  him  waiting  humbly  beside  the  track, 
and  glad  to  be  taken  aboard  again. 

Much  horseback  riding  in  and  around  this  town; 
many   comely   girls    in    cool    and    pretty   summer 

(332) 


Following  the  Equator  333 

gowns ;  much  Salvation  Army ;  lots  of  Maoris ;  the 
faces  and  bodies  of  some  of  the  old  ones  very  taste 
fully  frescoed.  Maori  Council  House  over  the  river 
—  large,  strong,  carpeted  from  end  to  end  with 
matting,  and  decorated  with  elaborate  wood  carv 
ings,  artistically  executed.  The  Maoris  were  very 
polite. 

I  was  assured  by  a  member  of  the  House  of 
Representatives  that  the  native  race  is  not  decreasing, 
but  actually  increasing  slightly.  It  is  another  evi 
dence  that  they  are  a  superior  breed  of  savages.  I 
do  not  call  to  mind  any  savage  race  that  built  such 
good  houses,  or  such  strong  and  ingenious  and 
scientific  fortresses,  or  gave  so  much  attention  to 
agriculture,  or  had  military  arts  and  devices  which 
so  nearly  approached  the  white  man's.  These, 
taken  together  with  their  high  abilities  in  boat 
building,  and  their  tastes  and  capacities  in  the  orna 
mental  arts,  modify  their  savagery  to  a  semi-civiliza 
tion —  or  at  least  to  a  quarter-civilization. 

It  is  a  compliment  to  them  that  the  British  did 
not  exterminate  them,  as  they  did  the  Australians 
and  the  Tasmanians,  but  were  content  with  subduing 
them,  and  showed  no  desire  to  go  further.  And  it 
is  another  compliment  to  them  that  the  British  did 
not  take  the  whole  of  their  choicest  lands,  but  left 
them  a  considerable  part,  and  then  went  further  and 
protected  them  from  the  rapacities  of  land-sharks  — 
a  protection  which  the  New  Zealand  Government 
still  extends  to  them.  And  it  is  still  another  com- 


334  Following  the  Equator 

pliment  to  the  Maoris  that  the  Government  allows 
native  representation  in  both  the  legislature  and  the 
cabinet,  and  gives  both  sexes  the  vote.  And  in 
doing  these  things  the  Government  also  compliments 
itself.  It  has  not  been  the  custom  of  the  world  for 
conquerors  to  act  in  this  large  spirit  toward  the 
conquered. 

The  highest  class  white  men  who  lived  among  the 
Maoris  in  the  earliest  time  had  a  high  opinion  of 
them  and  a  strong  affection  for  them.  Among  the 
whites  of  this  sort  was  the  author  of  "  Old  New 
Zealand";  and  Dr.  Campbell  of  Auckland  was 
another.  Dr.  Campbell  was  a  close  friend  of  several 
chiefs,  and  has  many  pleasant  things  to  say  of  their 
fidelity,  their  magnanimity,  and  their  generosity. 
Also  of  their  quaint  notions  about  the  white  man's 
queer  civilization,  and  their  equally  quaint  comments 
upon  it.  One  of  them  thought  the  missionary  had 
got  everything  wrong  end  first  and  upside  down. 
"Why,  he  wants  us  to  stop  worshiping  and  suppli 
cating  the  evil  gods,  and  go  to  worshiping  and  sup 
plicating  the  Good  One !  There  is  no  sense  in  that. 
A  good  god  is  not  going  to  do  us  any  harm." 

The  Maoris  had  the  tabu ;  and  had  it  on  a  Poly 
nesian  scale  of  comprehensiveness  and  elaboration. 
Some  of  its  features  could  have  been  importations 
from  India  and  Judea.  Neither  the  Maori  nor  the 
Hindoo  of  common  degree  could  cook  by  a  fire  that 
a  person  of  higher  caste  had  used,  nor  could  the 
high  Maori  or  high  Hindoo  employ  fire  that  had 


Following  the  Equator  335 

served  a  man  of  low  grade ;  if  a  low-grade  Maori  or 
Hindoo  drank  from  a  vessel  belonging  to  a  high- 
grade  man,  the  vessel  was  defiled,  and  had  to  be 
destroyed.  There  were  other  resemblances  between 
Maori  tabti  and  Hindoo  caste-custom. 

Yesterday  a  lunatic  burst  into  my  quarters  and 
warned  me  that  the  Jesuits  were  going  to  ' '  cook  ' ' 
(poison)  me  in  my  food,  or  kill  me  on  the  stage  at 
night.  He  said  a  mysterious  sign  Q  was  visible 
upon  my  posters  and  meant  my  death.  He  said 
he  saved  Rev.  Mr.  Haweis'  life  by  warning  him  that 
there  were  three  men  on  his  platform  who  would  kill 
him  if  he  took  his  eyes  off  them  for  a  moment 
during  his  lecture.  The  same  men  were  in  my  audi 
ence  last  night,  but  they  saw  that  he  was  there. 
"  Will  they  be  here  again  to-night?"  He  hesitated; 
then  said  no,  he  thought  they  would  rather  take  a 
rest  and  chance  the  poison.  This  lunatic  has  no 
delicacy.  But  he  was  not  uninteresting.  He  told 
me  a  lot  of  things.  He  said  he  had  "  saved  so  many 
lecturers  in  twenty  years,  that  they  put  him  in  the 
asylum."  I  think  he  has  less  refinement  than  any 
lunatic  I  have  met. 

December  8.  A  couple  of  curious  war-monuments 
here  at  Wanganui.  One  is  in  honor  of  white  men 
'  *  who  fell  in  defense  of  law  and  order  against 
fanaticism  and  barbarism."  Fanaticism.  We  Ameri 
cans  are  English  in  blood,  English  in  speech,  Eng 
lish  in  religion,  English  in  the  essentials  of  our 
governmental  system,  English  in  the  essentials  of 


336  Following  the  Equator 

our  civilization;  and  so,  let  us  hope,  for  the  honor 
of  the  blend,  for  the  honor  of  the  blood,  for  the 
honor  of  the  race,  that  that  word  got  there  through 
lack  of  heedfulness,  and  will  not  be  suffered  to 
remain.  If  you  carve  it  at  Thermopylae,  or  where 
Winkelried  died,  or  upon  Bunker  Hill  monument, 
and  read  it  again — "who  fell  in  defense  of  law  and 
order  against  fanaticism" — you  will  perceive  what 
the  word  means,  and  how  mischosen  it  is.  Patriot 
ism  is  Patriotism.  Calling  it  Fanaticism  cannot 
degrade  it;  nothing  can  degrade  it.  Even  though 
it  be  a  political  mistake,  and  a  thousand  times  a 
political  mistake,  that  does  not  affect  it;  it  is  honor 
able —  always  honorable,  always  noble  —  and  privi 
leged  to  hold  its  head  up  and  look  the  nations  in  the 
face.  It  is  right  to  praise  these  brave  white  men 
who  fell  in  the  Maori  war  —  they  deserve  it;  but  the 
presence  of  that  word  detracts  from  the  dignity  of 
their  cause  and  their  deeds,  and  makes  them  appear 
to  have  spilled  their  blood  in  a  conflict  with  ignoble 
men,  men  not  worthy  of  that  costly  sacrifice.  But 
the  men  were  worthy.  It  was  no  shame  to  fight 
them.  They  fought  for  their  homes,  they  fought 
for  their  country;  they  bravely  fought  and  bravely 
fell ;  and  it  would  take  nothing  from  the  honor  of 
the  brave  Englishmen  who  lie  under  the  monument, 
but  add  to  it,  to  say  that  they  died  in  defense  of 
English  laws  and  English  homes  against  men  worthy 
of  the  sacrifice  —  the  Maori  patriots. 

The  other  monument  cannot  be  rectified.     Except 


Following  the  Equator  337 

with  dynamite.  It  is  a  mistake  all  through,  and  a 
strangely  thoughtless  one.  It  is  a  monument  erected 
by  white  men  to  Maoris  who  fell  fighting  with  the 
whites  and  against  their  own  people,  in  the  Maori 
war.  "Sacred  to  the  memory  of  the  brave  men 
who  fell  on  the  I4th  of  May,  1864,"  etc.  On  one 
side  are  the  names  of  about  twenty  Maoris.  It  is 
not  a  fancy  of  mine;  the  monument  exists.  I  saw 
it.  It  is  an  object-lesson  to  the  rising  generation. 
It  invites  to  treachery,  disloyalty,  unpatriotism.  Its 
lesson,  in  frank  terms  is,  "Desert  your  flag,  slay 
your  people,  burn  their  homes,  shame  your  nation 
ality —  we  honor  such." 

December  9.  Wellington.  Ten  hours  from  Wan- 
ganui  by  the  Fly. 

December  12.  It  is  a  fine  city  and  nobly  situated. 
A  busy  place,  and  full  of  life  and  movement.  Have 
spent  the  three  days  partly  in  walking  about,  partly 
in  enjoying  social  privileges,  and  largely  in  idling 
around  the  magnificent  garden  at  Hutt,  a  little  dis 
tance  away,  around  the  shore.  I  suppose  we  shall 
not  see  such  another  one  soon. 

We  are  packing  to-night  for  the  return-voyage  to 
Australia.  Our  stay  in  New  Zealand  has  been  too 
brief;  still,  we  are  not  unthankful  for  the  glimpse 
which  we  have  had  of  it. 

The  sturdy  Maoris  made  the  settlement  of  the 
country  by  the  whites  rather  difficult.  Not  at  first 
—  but  later.  At  first  they  welcomed  the  whites, 
and  were  eager  to  trade  with  them  —  particularly 


338  Following  the  Equator 

for  muskets ;  for  their  pastime  was  internecine  war, 
and  they  greatly  preferred  the  white  man's  weapons 
to  their  own.  War  was  their  pastime  —  I  use  the 
word  advisedly.  They  often  met  and  slaughtered 
each  other  just  for  a  lark,  and  when  there  was  no 
quarrel.  The  author  of  "  Old  New  Zealand  "  men 
tions  a  case  where  a  victorious  army  could  have  fol 
lowed  up  its  advantage  and  exterminated  the  op 
posing  army,  but  declined  to  do  it;  explaining 
naively  that  "if  we  did  that,  there  couldn't  be  any 
more  fighting."  In  another  battle  one  army  sent 
word  that  it  was  out  of  ammunition,  and  would  be 
obliged  to  stop  unless  the  opposing  army  would  send 
some.  It  was  sent,  and  the  fight  went  on. 

In  the  early  days  things  went  well  enough.  The 
natives  sold  land  without  clearly  understanding  the 
terms  of  exchange,  and  the  whites  bought  it  without 
being  much  disturbed  about  the  native's  confusion 
of  mind.  But  by  and  by  the  Maori  began  to  com 
prehend  that  he  was  being  wronged ;  then  there  was 
trouble,  for  he  was  not  the  man  to  swallow  a  wrong 
and  go  aside  and  cry  about  it.  He  had  the  Tas- 
manian's  spirit  and  endurance,  and  a  notable  share 
of  military  science  besides ;  and  so  he  rose  against 
the  oppressor,  did  this  gallant  "fanatic,"  and 
started  a  war  that  was  not  brought  to  a  definite  end 
until  more  than  a  generation  had  sped. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI. 

There  are  several  good  protections  against  temptations,  but  the  surest  is 
cowardice. —  PudcTnhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

Names  are  not  always  what  they  seem.  The  common  Welsh  name 
Bzjxxllwcp  is  pronounced  Jackson.—  Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

FRIDAY,  December  13.  Sailed,  at  3  P.M.,  in  the 
I  Mararoa.  Summer  seas  and  a  good  ship  —  life 
has  nothing  better. 

Monday.  Three  days  of  paradise.  Warm  and 
sunny  and  smooth ;  the  sea  a  luminous  Mediterra 
nean  blue.  .  .  .  One  lolls  in  a  long  chair  all  day  under 
deck-awnings,  and  reads  and  smokes,  in  measureless 
content.  One  does  not  read  prose  at  such  a  time, 
but  poetry.  I  have  been  reading  the  poems  of 
Mrs.  Julia  A.  Moore,  again,  and  I  find  in  them 
the  same  grace  and  melody  that  attracted  me  when 
they  were  first  published,  twenty  years  ago,  and  have 
held  me  in  happy  bonds  ever  since.  "The  Senti 
mental  Song  Book  "  has  long  been  out  of  print,  and 
has  been  forgotten  by  the  world  in  general,  but  not 
by  me.  I  carry  it  with  me  always  —  it  and  Gold 
smith's  deathless  story.  .  .  .  Indeed,  it  has  the 
same  deep  charm  for  me  that  the  Vicar  of  Wakefield 
has,  and  I  find  in  it  the  same  subtle  touch  —  the 
v,  (339) 


340  Following  the  Equator 

touch  that  makes  an  intentionally  humorous  episode 
pathetic  and  an  intentionally  pathetic  one  funny.  In 
her  time  Mrs.  Moore  was  called  "'  the  Sweet  Singer 
of  Michigan,"  and  was  best  known  by  that  name.  I 
have  read  her  book  through  twice  to-day,  with  the 
purpose  of  determining  which  of  her  pieces  has  most 
merit,  and  I  am  persuaded  that  for  wide  grasp  and 
sustained  power,  "  William  Upson  "  may  claim  first 
place : 

WILLIAM  UPSON. 
AIR—"  The  Major's  Only  Son." 

Come  all  good  people  far  and  near, 
Oh,  come  and  see  what  you  can  hear, 
It's  of  a  young  man  true  and  brave, 
That  is  now  sleeping  in  his  grave. 

Now,  William  Upson  was  his  name  — 
If  it's  not  that,  it's  all  the  same  — 
He  did  enlist  in  a  cruel  strife, 
And  it  caused  him  to  lose  his  life. 

He  was  Perry  Upson's  eldest  son, 
His  father  loved  his  noble  son, 
This  son  was  nineteen  years  of  age 
When  first  in  the  rebellion  he  engaged. 

His  father  said  that  he  might  go, 

But  his  dear  mother  she  said  no, 

"Oh!  stay  at  home,  dear  Billy,"  she  said, 

But  she  could  not  turn  his  head. 

He  went  to  Nashville,  in  Tennessee, 
There  his  kind  friends  he  could  not  see; 
He  died  among  strangers,  so  far  away, 
They  did  not  know  where  his  body  lay. 


Following  the  Equator  341 

He  was  taken  sick  and  lived  four  weeks, 
And  Oh !  how  his  parents  weep, 
But  now  they  must  in  sorrow  mourn, 
For  Billy  has  gone  to  his  heavenly  home. 

Oh!  if  his  mother  could  have  seen  her  son, 

For  she  loved  him,  her  darling  son; 

If  she  could  heard  his  dying  prayer, 

It  would  ease  her  heart  till  she  met  him  there. 

How  it  would  relieve  his  mother's  heart 
To  see  her  son  from  this  world  depart, 
And  hear  his  noble  words  of  love, 
As  he  left  this  world  for  that  above. 

Now  it  will  relieve  his  mother's  heart, 
For  her  son  is  laid  in  our  graveyard; 
For  now  she  knows  that  his  grave  is  near, 
She  will  not  shed  so  many  tears. 

Although  she  knows  not  that  it  was  her  son, 
For  his  coffin  could  not  be  opened  — 
It  might  be  someone  in  his  place, 
For  she  could  not  see  his  noble  face. 

December  ij.     Reached  Sydney. 

December  19.  In  the  train.  Fellow  of  30  with 
four  valises;  a  slim  creature,  with  teeth  which  made 
his  mouth  look  like  a  neglected  churchyard.  He 
had  solidified  hair — solidified  with  pomatum;  it 
was  all  one  shell.  He  smoked  the  most  extraordi 
nary  cigarettes  —  made  of  some  kind  of  manure,  ap 
parently.  These  and  his  hair  made  him  smell  like 
the  very  nation.  He  had  a  low-cut  vest  on,  which 
exposed  a  deal  of  frayed  and  broken  and  unclean 
shirt-front.  Showy  studs,  of  imitation  gold  —  they 


342  Following  the  Equator 

had  made  black  disks  on  the  linen.  Oversized  sleeve 
buttons  of  imitation  gold,  the  copper  base  showing 
that.  Ponderous  watch-chain  of  imitation  gold.  I 
judge  he  couldn't  tell  the  time  by  it,  for  he  asked 
Smythe  what  time  it  was,  once.  He  wore  a  coat 
which  had  been  gay  when  it  was  young;  5 -o'clock- 
tea-trousers  of  a  light  tint,  and  marvelously  soiled ; 
yellow  moustache  with  a  dashing  upward  whirl  at  the 
ends ;  foxy  shoes,  imitation  patent  leather.  He  was 
a  novelty  —  an  imitation  dude.  He  would  have  been 
a  real  one  if  he  could  have  afforded  it.  But  he  was 
satisfied  with  himself.  You  could  see  it  in  his  ex 
pression,  and  in  all  his  attitudes  and  movements. 
He  was  living  in  a  dude  dreamland  where  all  his 
squalid  shams  were  genuine,  and  himself  a  sincerity. 
It  disarmed  criticism,  it  mollified  spite,  to  see  him  so 
enjoy  his  imitation  languors,  and  arts,  and  airs,  and 
his  studied  daintinesses  of  gesture  and  misbegotten 
refinements.  It  was  plain  to  me  that  he  was  imagin 
ing  himself  the  Prince  of  Wales,  and  was  doing  every 
thing  the  way  he  thought  the  Prince  would  do  it. 
For  bringing  his  four  valises  aboard  and  stowing 
them  in  the  nettings,  he  gave  his  porter  four  cents, 
and  lightly  apologized  for  the  smallness  of  the 
gratuity  —  just  with  the  condescendingest  little  royal 
air  in  the  world.  He  stretched  himself  out  on  the 
front  seat  and  rested  his  pomatum-cake  on  the  mid 
dle  arm,  and  stuck  his  feet  out  of  the  window,  and 
began  to  pose  as  the  Prince  and  work  his  dreams  and 
languors  for  exhibition;  and  he  would  indolently 


Following  the  Equator  343 

watch  the  blue  films  curling  up  from  his  cigarette, 
and  inhale  the  stench,  and  look  so  grateful;  and 
would  flip  the  ash  away  with  the  daintiest  gesture, 
unintentionally  displaying  his  brass  ring  in  the 
most  intentional  way;  why,  it  was  as  good  as 
being  in  Marlborough  House  itself  to  see  him  do  it 
so  like. 

There  was  other  scenery  in  the  trip.  That  of  the 
Hawksbury  river,  in  the  National  Park  region,  fine  — 
extraordinarily  fine,  with  spacious  views  of  stream 
and  lake  imposingly  framed  in  woody  hills;  and 
every  now  and  then  the  noblest  groupings  of  moun 
tains,  and  the  most  enchanting  rearrangements  of  the 
water  effects.  Further  along,  green  flats,  thinly 
covered  with  gum  forests,  with  here  and  there  the 
huts  and  cabins  of  small  farmers  engaged  in  raising 
children.  Still  further  along,  arid  stretches,  lifeless 
and  melancholy.  Then  Newcastle,  a  rushing  town, 
capital  of  the  rich  coal  regions.  Approaching  Scone, 
wide  farming  and  grazing  levels,  with  pretty  frequent 
glimpses  of  a  troublesome  plant — a  particularly 
devilish  little  prickly  pear,  daily  damned  in  the 
orisons  of  the  agriculturist;  imported  by  a  lady  of 
sentiment,  and  contributed  gratis  to  the  colony.  .  .  . 
Blazing  hot,  all  day. 

December  20.  Back  to  Sydney.  Blazing  hot 
again.  From  the  newspaper,  and  from  the  map,  I 
have  made  a  collection  of  curious  names  of  Aus 
tralasian  towns,  with  the  idea  of  making  a  poem  out 
of  them: 


344 


Following  the  Equator 


Tumut 

Waitpinga 

Wollongong 

Takee 

Goelwa 

Woolloomooloo 

Murriwillumba 

Munno  Para 

Bombola 

Bowral 

Nangkita 

Coolgardie 

Ballarat 

Myponga 

Bendigo 

Mullengudgery 

Kapunda 

Coonamble 

Murrurundi 

Kooringa 

Cootamundra 

Wagga-Wagga 

Penola 

Woolgoolga 

Wyalong 

Nangwarry 

Mittagong 

Murrumbidgee 

Kongorong 

Jamberoo 

Goomeroo 

Comaum 

Kondoparinga 

Wolloway 

Koolywurtie 

Kuitpo 

Wangary 

Killanoola 

Tungkillo 

Wanilla 

Naracoorte 

Oukaparinga 

Worrow 

Muloowurtie 

Talunga 

Koppio 

Binnum 

Yatala 

Yankalilla 

Wallaroo 

Parawirra 

Yaranyacka 

Wirrega 

Moorooroo 

Yackamoorundie 

Mundoora 

Whangarei 

Kaiwaka 

Hauraki 

Woolundunga 

Goomooroo 

Rangiriri 

Booleroo 

Tauranga 

Teawamute 

Pernatty 

Geelong 

Taranaki 

Parramatta 

Tongariro 

Toowoomba 

Taroom 

Kaikoura 

Goondiwindi 

Narrandera 

Wakatipu 

Jerrilderie 

Deniliquin 

Oohipara 

Whangaroa 

Kawakawa. 

It  may  be  best  to  build  the  poem  now,  and  make 
the  weather  help : 

A  SWELTERING  DAY  IN  AUSTRALIA. 

(  To  be  read  soft  and  low,  with  the  lights  turned  down.) 

The  Bombola  faints  in  the  hot  Bowral  tree, 
Where  fierce  Mullengudgery's  smothering  fires 

Far  from  the  breezes  of  Coolgardie 

Burn  ghastly  and  blue  as  the  day  expires; 


Following  the  Equator  345 

And  Murriwillumba  complaineth  in  song 

For  the  garlanded  bowers  of  Woolloomooloo, 

And  the  Ballarat  Fly  and  the  lone  Wollongong 
They  dream  of  the  gardens  of  Jamberoo; 

The  wallabi  sighs  for  the  Murrumbid£vr<f, 

For  the  velvety  sod  of  the  Munno  Para/i, 
Where  the  waters  of  healing  from  Muloowur/z> 

Flow  dim  in  the  gloaming  by  Yaranyac&z^/ 

The  Koppio  sorrows  for  lost  Wolloway, 

And  sigheth  in  secret  for  Murrurun<#, 
The  Whangaroa  wombat  lamenteth  the  day 

That  made  him  an  exile  from  JerrilderzV/ 

The  Teawamute  Tumut  from  Wirrega's  glade, 
The  Nangkita  swallow,  the  Wallaroo  swan, 

They  long  for  the  peace  of  the  Timaru  shade 
And  thy  balmy  soft  airs,  O  sweet  Mittagong ! 

The  Kooringa  buffalo  pants  in  the  sun, 

The  Kondoparinga  lies  gaping  for  breath, 
The  Kongorong  Comaum  to  the  shadow  has  won, 

But  the  Goomeroo  sinks  in  the  slumber  of  death; 

In  the  weltering  hell  of  the  Moorooroo  plain 

The  Yatala  Wangary  withers  and  dies, 
And  the  Worrow  Wanilla,  demented  with  pain, 

To  the  Woolgoolga  woodlands  despairingly  flies; 

Sweet  Nangwarry's  desolate,  Coonamble  wails, 

And  Tungkillo  Kuitpo  in  sables  is  drest, 
For  the  Whangarei  winds  fall  asleep  in  the  sails 

And  the  Booleroo  life-breeze  is  dead  in  the  west. 

Myponga,  Kapunda,  O  slumber  no  more  1 

Yankalilla,  Parawirra,  be  warned ! 
There's  death  in  the  air !     Killanoola,  wherefore 

Shall  the  prayer  of  Penola  be  scorned? 

Cootamundra,  and  Takee,  and  Wakatipu, 

Toowoomba,  Kaikoura  are  lost ! 
From  Oukaparinga  to  far  Oamaru 

All  burn  in  this  hell's  holocaust ! 


346  Following  the  Equator 

Parramatta  and  Binnum  are  gone  to  their  rest 

In  the  vale  of  Tapanni  Taroom, 
Kawakawa,  Deniliquin  —  all  that  was  best 

In  the  earth  are  but  graves  and  a  tomb ! 

Narrandera  mourns,  Cameroo  answers  not 

When  the  roll  of  the  scathless  we  cry : 
Tongariro,  Goondiwindi,  Woolundunga,  the  spot 

Is  mute  and  forlorn  where  ye  lie. 

Those  are  good  words  for  poetry.  Among  the 
best  I  have  ever  seen.  There  are  81  in  the  list.  I 
did  not  need  them  all,  but  I  have  knocked  down  66 
of  them ;  which  is  a  good  bag,  it  seems  to  me,  for  a 
person  not  in  the  business.  Perhaps  a  poet  laureate 
could  do  better,  but  a  poet  laureate  gets  wages,  and 
that  is  different.  When  I  write  poetry  I  do  not  get 
any  wages;  often  I  lose  money  by  it.  The  best 
word  in  that  list,  and  the  most  musical  and  gurgly, 
is  Woolloomooloo.  It  is  a  place  near  Sydney,  and  is 
a  favorite  pleasure  resort.  It  has  eight  O's  in  it. 


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